“Training failures speed timebomb countdown” – PrintWeek 05.02.10

John Procter, Business Manager – Print at Leeds City College replied to Editor Darryl Danielli and the following was published 12.02.10 in the magazine.

After a lifetime in printing I share the same concerns as you (“Training failures speed timebomb countdown” – Editorial 05.02.10). The time bomb is ticking on the aging workforce and these are workers with a wealth of skills and knowledge that will be very difficult to replace.

We do have some enlightened companies that are switched on and we at Leeds City College are privileged to work with them. Training providers must be more flexible in their approach of delivery. We have established the classrooms in the workplace and utilising the delivery of the City & Guilds Technical Certificates within a managed on line learning facility plus the NVQ programmes in house.

I agree that there is never a “one size fits all” to the training agenda but we must in many cases get back to the basic fundamentals of understanding ink, substrates, damping etc and then others fall in to place.

I do not buy in to the statements that there will be a huge pool of people available through redundancies as from past experience people do find alternative employment outside of our beloved industry. Companies do need to invest and be prepared for the upturn which will come. You can say that I am biased as a training provider but I am passionate about the industry and training.

I have been fortunate over the last 12 months to visit and discuss with fellow trainers in Europe. We do have a system in the UK that is the envy of Europe with our combination of Technical Certificates and NVQ in house assessments on the job. The thing that we do lack behind is that the training facilities in Finland, Denmark, Holland do have young people coming through as apprentices.