The closure of manufacturing industries has revealed an alarming skills shortage in the region's workforce.

Now, a £1bn campaign backed by The Northern Echo is set to boost post-16 education in the North-East. Julia Breen reports.

THE 15-year-old looked down at her maths book, a merry-go-round of meaningless numbers swimming around her head. The teacher's sharp voice, shouting her name, brought her mind back into the classroom.

"Sarah, answer the question," barked the teacher.

Swallowing, her throat dry, Sarah mumbled into her book, plucking numbers out of the air in desperation.

"The teacher made me feel like I was thick," says Sarah Guss, now 38. "I was terrified of maths lessons. I just believed I couldn't do it, even though I tried hard, and would just stare out of the window because I didn't understand.

"I thought it was my fault for being stupid, but really the teacher just didn't explain it properly. It's something that stays with you until you're an adult - there's this constant fear of being caught out, that people will find out that you're stupid because you can't do maths."

After two failed attempts to get her maths O-level, Sarah left school with seven other O-levels and went on to do a degree in art and education.

But because of a lack of maths qualifications, she could not fulfil her lifelong ambition of becoming a teacher. She became a potter and moved to America, where she started a family before coming back to the North-East.

One day she saw an advert offering basic skills tuition at Stockton & Billingham College, now Stockton Riverside College, and she has never looked back. The mother-of-one now teaches those at the college who, like her, had a bad school experience and are lacking in basic skills.

"I love it because I always wanted to be a teacher," she says. "Now I'm teaching these people and I know exactly how they feel. It's not like a school environment at all - it's relaxed and they just learn what they want to, at their own pace."

Sarah's experience is shared by thousands of adults across the North-East.

They are just some of the people whom the Learning and Skills Councils (LSCs) in County Durham and Teesside, in partnership with The Northern Echo, is targeting as part of our Working for a Future campaign.

During the next ten years more than £1bn will go into funding post-16 learning in Tees Valley and County Durham.

LSCs all over the country are to carry out the biggest ever review of learning in each area to improve education prospects, known as the Strategic Area review, or StAR for short. It could lead to a massive shake-up of training and learning and eventually combat skills shortages in the area.

But the problems in the North-East are more deep-set than in other areas. Years of relying on big-name industrial employers, which have left in their dozens to find a cheaper workforce overseas, means the region needs more investment.

The manufacturing crisis has hit Teesside and County Durham particularly hard, one of the worst examples being the lose of 950 jobs at Black and Decker in Spennymoor last year.

Following the announcement last October, The Northern Echo teamed up with the region's leading lights in business to bring a ray of hope to the shattered communities plagued by jobs losses in the North-East, and produced the Working for a Future campaign.

Now the campaign is being extended to education and to encourage more of our students and workers to get the skills they need.

Nick James, director of strategy and communications at LSC Tees Valley, says: "The StAR review of post-16 learning will encourage debate on the priorities for shaping learning to meet the needs of consumers in the future, not only in relation to improving skills for employability, but also in terms of allowing individuals to develop their own personal ambitions and confidence."

But it is not only building basic skills that is a priority for the region.

Keeping top graduates from the North-East's universities is crucial, as is ensuring bright talent, young and old, does not move away.

One day, 16-year-old Jonathan Clarke is expected to be one of our top doctors, breaking the boundaries of medicine with pioneering insight.

Unassuming as the pupil at Hartlepool's English Martyrs School is, Jonathan is officially one of the cleverest youngsters in the North-East.

That was confirmed when he tentatively broke open the envelope in August this year which contained his GCSE results - a total of 11 A*s and 2As.

But instead of ambitions of rushing off to study at Cambridge or Oxford, Jonathan wants to study at Newcastle University, which has one of the best medical schools in the country, and stay in the region.

Jonathan is exactly the kind of person the North-East needs. Too many of the region's talented graduates and bright A-level pupils are going elsewhere, thinking the real opportunities lie outside the North-East.

Many pick up top results and head off to the big smoke without a backward glance towards the region that was once their home.

But Jonathan says: "I would much rather be a doctor up here than go down south. The people up here are so much nicer - when I have been to London the people are more self-centred and not as caring. I don't want to work in that kind of environment.

"People should not just think they should go to London. I think there is as much for everyone here in terms of opportunities so they might as well stay here and give something back."

One NorthEast provides financial assistance to help regional companies recruit graduates from the North-East universities and is currently on a drive to improve working relationships between business and universities, with the aim of creating new hi-tech business and skilled jobs.

Entrepreneurship - and building the rates of business start-ups - is also crucial in helping the region recover from years of beleaguering job losses.

County Durham Business Link has supported 200 business start-ups in the last 12 months, and Tees Valley 511 - but both are hoping to improve on this each year.

And One NorthEast is launching a new network to change the way that new companies and businesses can get advice. The aim is to simplify the way businesses can tap into advice networks, with one contact that will put inquiries through to the relevant support bodies.

The Working for a Future campaign will continue to support business start-ups and highlight success stories. But it will also celebrate the achievements of those who have gone into learning at any age, providing inspiration for thousands of people in the region.

Austin McNamara, executive director of LSC County Durham, says: "By highlighting people in our communities who are shining examples in their ambitions and achievements we know that the campaign will inspire individuals, young and old, employers and our partner organisations to work together for a prosperous future.

"The area has traditionally suffered from a low skills economy, and we have a higher than average national percentage of adults who have problems with reading, writing and everyday use of numbers.

"We have identified key sectors in the region's economy where there are skills shortages and we are working to improve the responsiveness of the education and training system to meet the demands for particular skills in these and other areas."

* LSC Tees Valley's helpline for anyone seeking information on basic skills is 0800-100-900.