09.03.17
Are you ready for apprenticeship changes?
Source: RTM Feb/Mar 17
Dan Walker, head of apprenticeship delivery at National Training Academy for Rail (NTAR), explains how the organisation’s apprenticeship programmes are essential for employers who are serious about skills in the changing marketplace.
In case you’ve not heard: apprenticeships have changed. The old apprenticeship frameworks are being retired, and in their place new industry-specific, employer-devised standards are coming into effect. This is happening now.
In our industry, the Rail Engineering Standards offer employers a comprehensive training and assessment plan for developing the actual knowledge, skills, and behaviours their businesses require. No longer can a generic BTEC and NVQ combination be accepted as the breadth and depth of a learner’s preparation for their career in rail. The new standards ensure learners follow a path to recognised technical, occupational, and professional competence in the railway.
With the right provider, the standards can be the difference between an employer growing with their own next generation of rail engineering talent or plummeting into the skills gap. And don’t just take our word for it, the government thinks so too – frameworks now attract only a fraction of the funding that standards do.
At NTAR, we combine technology, expertise and care to provide stimulating, social, and authentic apprenticeship programmes against the new standards.
We employ award-winning immersive channels to give learners the opportunity to build practical knowledge and skills on legacy, current, and future rail engineering technology. We are early adopters of learning technologies and our innovative facilitated experiences and resources allow learners to safely and freely explore equipment, processes, and technique in virtual worlds and augmented reality, before testing their skills on the real thing in our workshops.
As part of the Siemens family, we have years of experience managing high-quality apprenticeships in large volumes across a range of engineering disciplines in the UK. And we’re proud to have been part of last year’s inspection that earned us our ‘Grade 1: Outstanding’ Ofsted rating.
We work with a network of forward-thinking partner providers across the country, giving employers access to NTAR-standard training provision on their door steps. The specialist elements of the standard are delivered from the NTAR hub in Northampton, whilst the more common elements are delivered locally – where our employers are based – using college facilities and workshops to our strict quality requirements. We support our partner providers with resources, materials, and CPD to ensure high-quality, standardised, industry-specific delivery across the network.
We not only ensure our programmes are aligned to our employers’ products, processes, values, and visions, but we also work with them to develop their own apprentice mentoring and support capabilities. Effective apprenticeship programmes are the result of a collaborative process, requiring commitment from employers, learners, and providers together.
We are the only lead provider that can deliver all of the above high-quality, rail-specific training and assessment within the funding envelope of the standards. For levy payers, this means we can convert up to £27,000 of levy contribution into tangible skills and performance, per learner. For non-levy payers, this means we can grant access to the type of high-value programme often unobtainable when developing entry level talent.
Innovative, relevant, accessible, proven and cost-effective, NTAR apprenticeship programmes are essential for employers who are serious about skills.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
W: http://ntar.co.uk
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