Fareham College welcomes exchange trip

Sixty budding engineers came from CFAI Moselle, a training centre in France, to visit the Centre of Excellence in Engineering, Manufacturing and Advanced Skills (CEMAST), at Fareham.

The centre, part of the £28m redevelopment of Fareham College, boasts vast workshops and all of the latest high-tech equipment.

The apprentices were put into three groups and took part in a variety of activities, including a tour of the centre, a meet-and-greet with current CEMAST students and a chance to observe some of the equipment in action.

Cecile Zanella, who organised the trip on behalf of CFAI Moselle, said: ‘We came to England for technical and cultural purposes.

‘We have visited the BMW Mini plant in Oxford as well as the Harry Potter Studio on our trip so far.

‘We found out about CEMAST online whilst researching other training centres.

‘It looked fascinating and we were very keen to come and have a look around.’

Ms Zanella was also keen to stress how impressed she was with the Fareham centre.

She said: ‘Our first impression of CEMAST was how brand new it looked.

‘All our students were very impressed with the new technologies and workshops available there.

‘Our students will be leaving feeling very inspired after our trip.’

Paul Brimecome, head of engineering at CEMAST, said: ‘We were very excited to receive the request from Cecile and her apprentices to come and meet our students and look around our facilities.

‘We very much enjoyed welcoming the students to CEMAST and hope they found the engineering resources we have here interesting. They seemed to get a lot out of the experience and we are grateful to have played a part in inspiring them.’

n Would you like to contribute to our community pages? E-mail [email protected].