In a project made possible through funding from the National VET E-learning Strategy, North Coast TAFE and a leading regional New South Wales employer are helping remote and disadvantaged learners develop the skills to enter the energy utilities market.
“Employability skills, including low literacy and numeracy skills, are common and critical barriers to regional applicants successfully gaining employment,” says project manager Samantha Kyle of North Coast TAFE.
Through the E-Learning for Essential Energy (E3) project—a collaboration between Essential Energy and North Coast TAFE—these learners, many of whom are Indigenous Australians, are developing the pre-employment skills to prepare for enrollment in the Certificate III in Electricity Supply Industry (Distribution).
“Many potential and existing workers lack the underpinning maths skills needed for the apprenticeship process, but the geographical spread of the target group disrupts their access to pre-employment training.”
This has a flow-on effect to the registered training organisation in terms of completions and support, and to the industry in terms of upskilling and retaining competent apprentices.
The best practice model being developed through the E3 project includes identifying, adapting and trialling existing employability and numeracy skills resources and technologies for the industry, and providing remote facilitation and ongoing tutorial support to learners.
“The technology used will depend on learners’ locations and access to technology, allowing us to customise existing skills resources for the industry and target learners, combined into self-paced online modules that suit different learning management systems,” explains Kyle.
“By providing support to communities at a grass roots level, we are also enabling appropriate resourcing levels in all locations across Essential Energy’s distribution area,” adds Kyle.
The Partnerships for Participation program of the National VET E-learning Strategy offers opportunities, through targeted funding, to develop e-learning approaches to improve the e-literacy, foundation skills and pre-vocational skills of individuals experiencing disadvantage.
The National VET E-learning Strategy is the responsibility of the Flexible Learning Advisory Group (FLAG), a key policy advisory group on national directions and priorities for information and communication technologies in the VET sector.
“The new technological environment is providing unprecedented access to more accessible training and learning opportunities,” says FLAG Chair Raymond Garrand, Chief Executive of the South Australian Department of Further Education, Employment, Science and Technology.