Who’s Involved – Private Sector: Johnson & Johnson

Operations Director: Johnson & Johnson at Kirkton Campus (Livingston) make stereo-medical devices, but I guess people would know J & J better for the consumer products: baby products, shampoos, toothbrushes, etc.

Operations Manager 1: It's an American-based company, a global company, operating something like 250 companies worldwide.

Operations Director: Our Bridge to Employment initiative is where we work with schools and colleges to connect the curriculum activities that students are taught in schools and colleges to the business environment, and the particular interest that we have, because we are a healthcare company, is in the sciences – physics, chemistry, biology.

Lecturer West Lothian College: They will take part in job shadowing some of the staff in Johnson & Johnson. They will explore health and safety, they will look at health-related issues. They can then bring back and feed into projects within college.

Quality assurance associate: We do a lot of workshops with them, and we do a lot of work shadowing as well.

Operations Manager 1: For work shadowing, the students come in and they spend some time in my department. I've got a lab which looks at raw materials coming in, so they learn about the equipment that we use there.

Quality assurance associate: They get to see stuff from the labs... they get to see bacteria growing.

Operations Manager 1: The students coming in, they've go questions, they've got thoughts in their heads and they should, and do, ask. Some of the students have said things in groups and you think, that's a really good idea... we should do that... stuff you don't normally think about.

Pupil 1: We went to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and we got to watch a live heart operation with one of their top surgeons. It was an absolutely amazing experience. We got to dress up in our scrubs, wash our hands down and actually stand in the theatre. When we got to go to the hospital, we actually got to see them use Johnson & Johnson sutures, so it was nice to see how it worked.

Pupil 2: To be able to see all the different types of sutures they make, and then go into a theatre and see them in use, it was really interesting.

Operations director: I guess what we try to show the students is that by working together, by working with people who have got different skills, you can actually get synergy and you can actually achieve so much more.

Operations Manager 1: Wherever you go, whatever department you're going to be working in, whatever company you're working in, you will work in a team. And to be able to do that, regardless of who is in that team, is extremely important.

Pupil 1: Through teamwork, we were able to build confidence with each other – no-one was shy because we knew how everyone worked and everyone's strengths and weaknesses.

Operations Director: The partnership allows us to utilise all our different skills. As a manufacturing company, we have a lot of business knowledge and a lot of technical knowledge. I think there is a tremendous benefit for business if they can actually link in with the school curriculum, and the talented people, the successful business people of the future are currently in school.

Headteacher: Education business partnerships in schools are vital. There is no doubt they bring a relevance to our curriculum which is unique.

Operations Manager 2: Whether we are investing in potential employees, or potential customers who are going to go out and work as doctors or nurses, we are hopefully nurturing the future talent of Scotland.