A NEW initiative by the University of Kent is set to revolutionise retail training.

Driven by the University of Kent at Medway in association with John Lewis, the scheme will be officially launched at Bluewater on September 2.

The Retail Academy will give existing and new staff the opportunity to obtain a foundation degree in retail on a one-year full-time or two-year part-time basis.

UKM director of operations Jeff Brown said: "For a couple of years the North Kent Chamber of Commerce has been talking to retailers and members and looking at their needs for training schemes and the idea of keeping motivated staff.

"This idea filtered through to the university and the foundation degrees that we are launching are all focused on meeting the needs of employers.

"We met with John Lewis and other retailers for a discussion and they were very keen and excited."

Mr Brown explained that the retail management degrees will build on existing internal training schemes already in place at retailers.

"Building on those internal mechanisms the foundation degree will include a whole range of stuff like e-commerce, retail branding schemes, events management and financial aspects.

"They will be learning about the sort of things they will be doing every day with cash machines and customers and analysing logistics - these are absolutely fundamental aspects - and analysing custom spend against company investment."

Students will be taking part in seminars and projects produced by the UKM while still working at the various retailers and they will have access to all the university's facilities.

At the moment John Lewis is the only named retailer but it is expected other names will be coming on board as well.

Mr Brown added: "It's not just the university and John Lewis. There will be an open invitation to other retailers. Dartford Borough Council will also be present - they are very keen that Dartford is getting further education.”

All modules are produced by the university and marking will be done by university staff but some evaluations will also be shared with the individual retail manager.