Jean Urquhart

British Council Scotland’s World Scots Campaign
That the Parliament welcomes the launch of British Council Scotland’s campaign, World Scots; supports the campaign’s principal aim, which is to give Scotland’s young people a competitive edge in the global marketplace by encouraging them to adopt a global outlook when it comes to their employment prospects and future careers; understands that British Council Scotland will set itself a challenging new target of increasing by 25% the proportion of Scots participating in its key outward mobility programmes by the end of the 2012-13 academic year; notes that these programmes include the EU-funded Erasmus and Comenius schemes, IAESTE work internships, the development of language assistants and school linking and twinning; believes that these programmes give young people the skills that they need to operate comfortably in an increasingly globalised economy and interact successfully with people from other countries and cultures; shares with British Council Scotland its reported concern regarding the Global Skills Gap survey of 500 senior business leaders, which was commissioned by the British Council and Think Global, in which 75% of those surveyed suggested that they were worried that young people’s horizons are not broad enough to operate in the globalised economy; notes also that 80% of those surveyed regarded international experience as a key asset for new recruits, and welcomes what it understands to be the broad support from across Scotland’s business and youth organisations for the campaign, including that of CBI Scotland, the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, the Institute of Directors Scotland, Scottish Chambers of Commerce, Scottish Financial Enterprise, Young Scot and the Scottish Youth Parliament.