On Thursday 5th March, Miriam González Durántez and Andreas Schleicher (pictured above with Deputy Principal Pat Squires) visited City of Westminster College to speak to students as part of International Women’s Day which took place worldwide on Sunday 8th March. Following the talks CWC held a Careers Fair for students studying Sport, Travel, Business, ICT, Public Services and the Creative Industries.

Mrs González Durántez, who is a partner at the European law firm Dechert LLP and married to Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, launched the ‘Inspiring Women’ campaign in October 2013 which seeks to bring outstanding women who volunteer with the organisation to speak to students in schools. She told those who attended the talk that her mother was the most determined woman in her life and had encouraged her to stay in Bruges, Belgium when she received a postgraduate scholarship to attend the College of Europe there. She emphasised to students that persistency is key when looking for work and that those who make an effort, both in education and in employment, will go far.

Mr Schleicher is Director for Education and Skills, and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. He spoke to CWC’s students about the lack of females taking important subjects such as science, maths and engineering with less than one in 20 girls considering a career in those fields compared to one in five boys. He encouraged young women to think about pursuing careers in traditionally male-dominated fields such as mathematics, IT, science, construction and engineering.

“The talks from Miriam González Durántez and Andreas Schleicher were booked by tutors for their students so that they are able to discuss some of the topics that were brought up in future lessons,” said CWC’s Careers Advisor Louise Rochford. “It was all based around International Women’s Day and looks to inspire girls to think about careers in the subject areas where we don’t have many female students.”

“The Careers Fair was a much smaller event compared to previous ones we’ve had as it was targeted at specific courses which meant that employers were able to have much better career-focused conversations with students. The companies who attended said they were very impressed with the questions that the students were asking. We had quite a wide mix of employers from the Army, Navy, IBM and BIMM to Westminster Council’s Sports department and Youth Employment UK, ensuring that all of our students in those courses were catered for.”