Coleg Sir Gâr and Stockport College support skills shortage

The Welsh/English partnership has spoken to UK Construction Media about its wide portfolio of programmes that will help to meet the needs of the industry. 

Coleg Sir Gâr has been successfully supporting the construction sector through training and consultancy for many years across South Wales. In 2013 the Business Development & Innovation unit set up a new OSAT (On Site Assessment and Training) centre to meet the growing needs of industry and address the issue of working with employees on site rather than attending college. We targeted experienced workers who needed NVQ’s to gain their CSCS cards and provide upskilling and support where required.

The success of the programme has resulted in an exciting new initiative and partnership with Stockport College to launch a range of construction programmes across the Greater Manchester region and pan Wales. What has made this a success is that working closely with CITB, we listened very carefully to what the construction sector actually wanted.

A team of experienced assessors from the sector were recruited to work with companies in both up and coming and existing trades. For example, NVQs in Timber Frame Erection, Fenestration, Groundworks and both Internal and External Wall Insulation were constantly being requested, as well as the biblical trades by companies and through CITB research. We proactively supported these trades resulting in over 600 NVQs being achieved in the last two years.

Recent surveys have identified significant skills shortages across the sector and with over 150 NVQ options to choose from and related provision for the sector we are rolling out these programmes across the UK.

Additionally, in the Timber Frame sector, CITB in conjunction with the UK Structural Timber Association (STA) launched the Specialist Upskilling Programme in 2014. Coleg Sir Gâr successfully piloted this programme with 38 learners, one of only two providers in the UK who supported this industry based programme. The benefit to the companies is one of maintaining a highly skilled and qualified workforce as well as the grant from CITB levy contributors.

Andrew Carpenter, Chief Executive of the STA is in favour of the partnership, commenting: “It’s great to see that the skills issue – which is the biggest problem affecting the industry right now – is being directly addressed. We’re pleased to associate ourselves with the training initiative and have received fantastic feedback following the ‘Specialist Upskilling Programme’, which we worked in conjunction with the CITB on last year.”

Both Coleg Sir Gâr and Stockport College are launching this new provision across Greater Manchester in partnership to help meet the current skills shortage entirely on site in September 2015.

Both Colleges have new business-focused websites that delivers a wide portfolio of programmes to meet the needs of the industry.

Contact details for England are:

0300 300 0090, bdienquiries@stockport.ac.uk or visit http://ift.tt/1NZQQ02

For Wales, please contact:

01554 748344, bdi@colegsirgar.ac.uk or visit http://ift.tt/1L6HF8I

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