I am just going to come out and say it: I am far from convinced by the idea - fashionable among those in the further education and skills sector - that college provision should be tailored to employer need.

It is time to start questioning the received wisdom that education should be all about the employer. I realise that, in tight financial times, and with Brexit around the corner (whether we like it or not), we cannot run courses that lead students nowhere. And, actually, we should never run those courses unless they are properly labelled as hobbies.

It is also self-evidently sensible that FE provision should be guided and influenced by regional and national need. We know that mobility among FE students, in particular, is much lower than among those heading for university, and we should therefore make sure that there are opportunities available to college graduates near to where they live. After all, these are people who are likely to have care responsibilities, school-aged children, a financial situation that makes travel difficult - you name it, they have to deal with it.

It is therefore only logical that, as a college - or forward-thinking school, for that matter - you should work with employers to align provision and ensure accurate careers advice and guidance. So far, so good.

What bothers me about the “skills needs” rhetoric is its narrowness. Why is that all we talk about these days? Is this really the most ambitious thing we can imagine for the young people who walk through the doors of our colleges and schools?

The times are a-changin 

The market used to work like this, of course. For decades, young people’s educational routes were, in large part, driven by regional employers - the mining industry is a great example of that, as is shipbuilding on the Clyde.

But surely the world has changed. Our ambitions no longer need to be blinkered by the employment opportunities that are within walking distance. The world is metaphorically shrinking all the time - the huge global audience for last week’s royal wedding is just one slightly bewildering example of this.

So why can’t we look beyond the borders of our local authority, Scotland and even the UK for employment opportunities? Apparently, so our political leaders tell us, Brexit will not mean that the UK is cut off from the international community. Instead, we will be more global than ever. So what are the employment needs worldwide? What are the future industries that other nations are investing in?

When I moved from Germany to the UK to be a journalist, I benefited from free movement for EU citizens and a lowered language barrier - having had years of school English lessons. But I took that step despite active discouragement from my school careers adviser, family and friends, and even though there was certainly no journalism skills gap in my local, very rural, area.

I am not saying, let’s train hundreds of young people for courses that lead to jobs available only in China. I am merely saying, let’s take account of the fact that the route I took - or a variation of it - is also open to thousands of young Britons trained in countless industries. And so, why not acknowledge in the narrative we use around training and skills that our young people’s horizons should be as vast as humanly possible?

This is particularly crucial with Brexit approaching. It may be a scary and uncertain time, but we absolutely must not let our world - or that of our young people - become smaller. We must make it clear, in fact, that it is their oyster.