Skills for Good - May 2022: Apprenticeship Boost extended, new Christchurch office, Gateway student success...

Tēnā koutou

It seems with each passing month that we are seeing more pockets of normality resuming, and it is certainly our sincerest hope that this represents a sustained lift out of Covid-19. At the same time, we do acknowledge the considerable workforce pressures so many of you continue to face each day. Where possible, our Careerforce whānau are now back out and about, and relishing the opportunities for face to face engagement, having been starved of this for so long.

Between 2020 and 2021, our apprenticeship enrolments grew 63%, and a significant reason for this was the availability of the Apprenticeship Boost payments to employers of apprentices. Accordingly, we were thrilled with the 2022 Budget announcement that Apprenticeship Boost was to be extended through to December 2023, and I encourage you to read more about this fund in this issue.

Finally, I did want to make tribute to the unexpected passing of one of our Careerforce whānau in May, Tracy Jones. Tracy worked in our client services team, and many of you will have had contact with Tracy over her three years with Careerforce. Tracy will be remembered for her determination, patience, and passion for the health and wellbeing of our communities, and will be deeply missed. A poroporoaki (eulogy) was prepared by Careerforce Kaiwhakahononga, Tūraukawa Bartlett, and is shared here.

Ngā mihi nui

Jane Wenman
Careerforce Chief Executive

There really has never been a better time to enrol your staff into an apprenticeship programme:

The Apprenticeship Boost fund is available for the first 24 months of an apprenticeship programme, but is only available until December 2023, or for 19 more months.
Via the Targeted Training & Apprenticeship Fund (TTAF), enrolment fees remain free until December 2022. At this stage, it is not our expectation that TTAF will be extended. Prior to TTAF, apprenticeship enrolment fees were $2,000 (incl GST).

If you enrol a new apprentice now, you will be able to claim Apprenticeship Boost payments of $11,000, and get free enrolment (saving $2,000) – a net effect of $13,000 per apprentice.

If you wait until March next year, you will only be able to claim Apprenticeship Boost payments of $5,000, and there will no longer be free enrolment via TTAF – a net effect of $3,000 per apprentice.

If you are interested in enrolling staff onto one of our Apprenticeship programmes, please reach out to your regular Careerforce contact.

Our training agreements have recently been updated and reflect 4 key changes:

Addition of the new 3 month minimum enrolment period (as detailed in April Skills for Good)
Addition of the trainee activity requirements, i.e. that a trainee may go on-hold after 10 months with no activity, and may be withdrawn after 12 months with no activity
Update to reflect compliance with 2020 Privacy Act (replacing 1993 Act)
Addition of ‘Gender Diverse’ option (see following)

Gender Diverse

An additional gender option on our training agreements has been under active consideration for some time, and follows increasing feedback and requests from our employers, Gateway partners, and learners. A number of options were available, but ‘Gender Diverse’ was selected after careful consideration, and is commonly used across other ITOs, and by the Ministry of Health.

Please ensure you use the latest version training agreements.

In next month’s Skills for Good newsletter, we will be sharing the results from the 2021 annual employer survey, but perhaps more importantly, the actions we are undertaking to address the feedback that you so generously shared with us.

In the meantime, we wanted to share some topline findings from our latest ‘Graduate Survey’ report.

The purpose of this survey is to seek feedback from our graduate learners to inform potential improvements to our learner journeys, and to our programmes. It has been running since March 2021, and we have now had nearly 4,000 survey completions.

Graduates’ overall satisfaction has risen from 8.0 in the previous report to 8.2 out of 10
More than 75% of graduates found the assessment questions easy to understand, but that ongoing efforts to simplify the wording and update content should continue
90% of graduates consider the assessments and learning resources relevant to the tasks they do at work, and say they can use what they have learnt in their role
92% say they gained new skills and knowledge
Many graduates want to pursue further study, but lack awareness of what those next steps could be
Learning progress was delayed by a lack of time and resources within the workplace for training support, observations, and assessment, and assessor support remains a critical enabler to success

As we have previously outlined, the proposed transition of our ‘arranging training’ function into Te Pūkenga has remained subject to formal TEC Board approval, and is scheduled to be discussed at their 31 May Board meeting.

The proposed plan was recently discussed at a RoVE Programme Board meeting as a precursor to the TEC Board meeting, and it is our expectation that the TEC Board will approve our proposed transition into Te Pūkenga’s Work Based Learning (WBL) subsidiary on 1 September this year.

As a 16 year old, Ahnaliyah first learnt about the Gateway programme from her teacher. Although a little unsure of things at first, as the year progressed, she became more excited, realising what a great achievement this was going to be for her.

Gateway programmes are set up to give high school students access to structured workplace learning while still at school. The students gain valuable experience and skills in the workplace that help them transition to the workforce, whilst supporting them to achieve unit standards towards a qualification.

In recent years, we introduced activity requirements across both our trainee and apprentice programmes, resulting in learners being placed on-hold and then possibly withdrawn if these requirements were not met. Apprentices were required to complete a module within any 5 month period, and trainees were required to complete an assessment within any 10 month period.

Our experience has been that if learners are not regularly completing assessments in their programme, there is a much higher risk that they will not complete their qualification.

This process has worked well in ‘ordinary’ times but as you all know, and particularly for the health and wellbeing sectors, Covid-19 represents anything but ‘ordinary’ times. This has resulted in a significant number of learners being placed on hold, and currently queued for possible withdrawal. We completely understand and empathise with the challenges facing our sectors, and that for many, training has simply had to take a back seat to meet the incredibly high demands on the sectors and their workforces.

To recognise this and provide some relief to our learners, we are temporarily pausing the on-hold and withdrawal processes. This measure is intended to allow our learners some breathing space, and acknowledges that current levels of training activity do not at all reflect their true commitment to achieving their qualification. As part of this same process, many learners who had been automatically placed on-hold due to a lack of activity will revert to the standard ‘active’ status. It absolutely remains our expectation that our trainees and apprentices will resume their learning activity as we recover from the impacts of Covid-19, and ‘ordinary’ resumes.

Shortly, you will see these changes reflected in your training reports. Please note that this is a temporary pause to the activity requirements to reflect the current workplace challenges and provide some relief to our employers and learners. This will be reviewed regularly, and it remains our fullest expectation to resume our activity requirements at such a time that Covid-19 workplace pressures have reduced.

If there is anything at all that Careerforce can do to support the continuation of learning, please reach out.

Atlanta Mcintyre and Nina Freeman recently completed assessor training provided by Careerforce. “Achieving this crucial piece of work means that they can now help support members rolling through the education and training they need to excel in the workplace,” says Annie McNicol, CRC General Manager.

CRC is a Canterbury-based support service that offers people with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to live as independently as possible. For over 25 years, CRC has been supporting, advocating and inspiring people, giving them the tools, support and guidance to build their confidence and make better choices.

The Careerforce Resource Library can be accessed through iportal and resources can be downloaded using a QR code scanner. If you don't already have an iportal login, simply visit https://iportal.careerforce.org.nz and 'register a new account'.

This programme leads to the awarding of the New Zealand Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Level 3) (Support Work strand). It is aimed to develop the skills and knowledge required of disability support workers in roles that provide person-centred support in the disability sector. The average duration is 12 months.

With an iportal login, your trainees can:

Access the Careerforce resource library
View and download their training progress report on demand

Since December last year, access to the Careerforce Library of paper-based learning resources is only via a secure login on the Careerforce iportal site.

We've contacted trainees to explain how they can continue to access the resources using their new iportal login, and well over 1200 trainees have already registered. We encourage you to remind your trainees about this in case they have yet to register.

Trainees can also track their own training progress, anytime, anywhere. With their iportal login, trainees can view and download their own training progress reports on demand. These reports show which unit standards they have completed, and which are yet to be completed. This all helps give them self-autonomy as they progress along their training journey.