Conference 2009 - Skills That Add Value


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Industry Training Federation Conference 2009

"Skills That Add Value"

 

The ITF would like to extend thanks to all participants and delegates for another very successful conference. In particular we express grateful thanks to our conference partners, sponsors and supporters.

Presentations from the conference keynotes and workshop sessions are now available for download below.

Keynote presentations

  • Conference Opening: Kevin Bryant, Chair ITF
 Conference Opening (22KB) 
  • Hon Anne Tolley, Minister for Tertiary Education
Minister Tolley confirmed her government's commitment to support industry training during the recession, so that New Zealand has an adequately skilled workforce when economic conditions improve. She was pleased that despite the harsh economic weather, training numbers seemed to be holding up reasonably well for many industries.  The Minister noted that her two areas of concern were completion rates and the number of qualifications.  Hon Tolley said she would be looking for improvement in both areas to ensure the government was getting the best value from its investment. 
 Hon Anne Tolley Speech (81KB)
  
Tom Bewick called for a "customer-led" and sectoral approach to investing in skills development that provides an equitable playing field for learners to access vocational education opportunities that meet the needs of employers and learners alike.  Tom argued that industry sectors are a more sensible way to allocate investment in training than other approaches and should be based on good analyses of skill needs.
 
"Shift Happens" presentation (Youtube link)
 Audio - Tom Bewick (27794KB) 
  
  • Manfred Polzin, Senior Consultant International Affairs, MBO Raad, Netherlands. The “MBO Raad” is the Netherlands Association of VET Colleges. The association represents all government-funded colleges for secondary vocational education and training and adult education in the Netherlands. The Netherlands government invests about 2.6 billion euros annually in this sector, which represents approximately 12% of the total budget for education.
Manfred presented an informative and illuminating tour through the Dutch vocational education and training system. The Dutch have undergone a major series of reforms since 1996, rationalising both the numbers of training colleges and the number of qualifications, and increased the number of commissions set up to discuss these issues! Some salutary lessons and clear parallels to the situation here in New Zealand.
 
Manfred Polzin Presentaton (897KB)
  
Gerald Burke Presentation (456KB) 
  • Ganesh Nana, Senior Economist, BERL, on the importance of investing in skills.  Ganesh treated delegates to a brilliant presentation which applied "old-school" economics to the current recession. He warned of the dangers of equating "economics" with "financial commentary", noting that these days we get far too much of the latter.  New Zealand - after the recession - isn't likely to change much - we will still largely be an export-driven, primary-producing economy. But Ganesh argued powerfully for the role of skills and training as the key part of the economy where gains in productivity can be made, so that New Zealand doesn't "live in the red" as we have for far too long.
Ganesh Nana Presentation (1688KB)
 
  • Sandra Pattison, General Manager - Statistics from the Australian National Centre for Vocational Education Research, on how to improve outcomes in workplace learning.  Sandra demonstrated that issues around completions are certainly not confined to one side of the Tasman.  Sandra presented the results of some intensive research into the motivations of apprentices and industry trainees to understand better the reasons why some trainees complete qualifications while others do not, and what the evidence has to say about  success factors, and the extent to which pastoral support is cited by all parties as a major contributor key to learner success.
Sandra Pattison Presentation (1554KB) 
 
 
 
  • Jeremy Baker, Executive Director, Industry Training Federation,  spoke to the Industry Training Federation's new report "Matching Supply and Demand", launched at conference.  It attempts to match the current supply of industry-based vocational education and training, and the demand for skills. Jeremy noted that the ITF was responding to one of the actions from the Prime Minister's Job Summit earlier this year.  As Jeremy noted, the model may not be perfect, but it's a place to start to have conversations about whether we are investing in the right areas to develop people with the right skills.
 Audio - Jeremy Baker (27003KB)  

 

Workshops 
 
ITOs and industry representatives shared examples of good practice and innovative ways in which workplaces and industries can make the most of industry training.
  • Agriculture ITO – aligning qualifications to ensure that training adds value for employers.   Kevin Bryant and Fred Hardy discussed how ITOs can ensure that their customers receive the greatest possible benefits from participating in training.  Drawing on earlier research conducted by the Agriculture ITO, Kevin and Fred demonstrated how analysis of the factors affecting actual outcomes from training - such as worker productivity - had led the ITO to redesign the focus of its qualifications and the ways in which they can be accessed.  This included rethinking how the ITO worked to ensure that employers, employees, and industries as a whole received appropriate support from the organisation.
  • Social Services ITO - showcasing an inhouse training project that social services organisations offer their staff and volunteers. Fourteen organisations, including two iwi social services and one government agency, are participating in the project.  
  • Joinery ITO – an overview of a programme focusing on effective mentoring in the workplace.   Deb Paul, CE, and Virginia Sanders, National Training Advisor, gave a vibrant presentation about the significant contribution that mentoring programmes can make to successful industry training outcomes. The presentation included a DVD based on a mentoring programme put in place by a large glass company.  Deb and Virginia used the DVD to highlight the key components of the programme and the difference it has made to both trainees and the company.
  • Tranzqual – whole of enterprise approaches to addressing training needs.  Wayne Smith, CE, gave a highly informative and compelling case for the use of enterprise-wide agreements with employers to secure commitment to training and completion, but providing support not just for the trainee, but the whole business.  And the results speak for themselves.  Tranzqual is an evidence-driven organsiation that is seeing some real improvement across a range of metrics, including qualifications completion.

  • Extractives ITO – demonstrating how to work closely with industry to develop a strategic skills action plan.  Kevin Walker, CE, presented the culmination of a huge amount of work that EXITO has carried out in developing seven industry training plans across its constituent industries. One of the key points of his presentation was that both industry and the ITO gained significant value from the process of engagement required to develop the plans, as well as from the resulting plans themselves.
 EXITO Presentation (7793KB) 
  • Apparel & Textile ITO – a case study of how businesses in the apparel industry are incorporating skill development and application as components of an integrated approach to productivity improvement.  Mike Gorinski, CE of the Apparel and Textile ITO, and Mike and Emily May, co-Directors of Jaedon Enterprises, presented a case study on how ITOs can support businesses to address productivity.  Mike Gorinski put forward the proposition that simply getting employees to obtain qualifications is not enough to improve productivity - training needs to be seen as part of a wider productivity strategy tailored to a specific workplace.  Mike and Emily May then discussed how this had worked in their business, with the Apparel and Textile ITO supporting the introduction of specialists to benchmark work practices, assess training needs that related to those practices, and then implement training to address those needs.  This made Jaedon more efficient, saved significant amounts of money, and improved staff communication and morale.
  • FITEC – outlining a new approach to performance monitoring in the industry training sector.  Ashley Perera gave a well-received presentation on how the annual report can be used much more purposefully and drive quality improvement in an ITO.  The annual report ought to be forward-looking as well as backward-looking, and be written in a way that people at all levels of the organisation can engage with.  Ashley showed many great examples of ways information can be presented, for example the use of performance dashboards, and online presentation of reporting information.
 FITEC Presentation (1073KB) 
  • Services Industries Training Alliance (SITA) – presentation outlining extensive work undertaken to develop career maps and pathway across the services sector.  Elizabeth Valentine, Chief Executive of ATTTO, outlined several of the projects that the Service Industry Training Alliance group of ITOs have contributed to, such as the ITOMIC learning management system, and the essential skills qualifications, through collaboration, co-operation and a high-trust relationship between related industries.  Service industries are growing, and are the face of our Tourism sector, which is a massive export earner for New Zealand.
 SITA Presentation (2548KB) 
  • Matching Supply & Demand - how industry and educational data can be used to assist in improving the matching of tertiary educaiton supply and demand.  Jenny Connor from the ITF Secretariat demonstrated the Industry Skills Toolkit, which takes a range of information sources relating to education and training and the labour market, to provide industry-specific reports of tertiary supply and demand.  The toolkit also contains the new Matching tool which allows ITOs to compare the level of training currently occurring across the tertiary education sector with labour market information from their industries.
  • High Performance in ITOs -  Josh Williams and Nicholas Huntington outlined progress on the ITF's project to support quality development in ITOs through the articulation of quality dimensions of ITOs, and the progressive collection of information about ITO activities to support planning, benchmarking and self review.   Josh presented a prototype version of an online self-review tool that ITOs will be able to use to benchmark themselves against the quality dimensions and map these to the new quality assurance system being developed for the tertiary education sector.