Business Secretary Praises Cass Teaching and Research

Oct. 25, 2012 - PRLog -- Mr Cable described Cass's position in the recent Economist MBA rankings - where the School was placed third in the UK and ninth in Europe - as an "outstanding achievement".  He went on to say the School is a "vivid illustration" of how "education is the best way of opening the door to professional success and personal fulfilment."

The RT Hon Dr Vince Cable MP, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills was at Cass to deliver the sixth annual Sir John Cass's Foundation Lecture titled 'Accelerating social mobility: improving life chances'.

Speaking to a packed auditorium, he said the UK has relatively low levels of social mobility both by international standards and compared with the immediate post-war 'baby boomer' generation.  He said evidence showed that an individual's chance of reaching the top is heavily influenced by their start childhood.

"Men and women with parents in professional and managerial occupations are twice as likely as those with parents in semi and unskilled occupations to end up in professional and managerial occupations themselves," he said.

Mr Cable said that adult education was vital to bolstering social mobility and giving children a good start in life.  "To promote social mobility we must also improve the life chances of those who have already reached adulthood. We cannot support children without also giving parents a second chance," he said.

"We clearly need to spread the message that time invested in education and training is worthwhile no matter what stage the learner is at in their working life. Research published by my Department demonstrates wage and employment benefits from a range of qualifications when taken in adulthood.

"That is why we are focusing our efforts on providing fair access to high-quality education and training across the age range. Because, as the Cass Business School (http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/more-about-cass/about-the-scho...) illustrates so vividly, education is the best way of opening the door to professional success and personal fulfillment."

Sir John Cass Business School is among the global elite of business schools that hold the gold standard of 'triple-crown' accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the Association of MBAs (AMBA) and the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS). We are consistently ranked amongst the best business schools and programmes (http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate) in the world which, coupled with an established 40-year reputation for excellence in research (http://www.cass.city.ac.uk/research-and-faculty/research) and business education which enables us to attract some of the best academics, students and businesses worldwide.