Future developments

John Moody is our new single point of contact for the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education (IfATE) and is BINDT’s Project Manager for Apprenticeships. IfATE has been holding a series of meetings with employers from engineering apprenticeships (including NDT) at various forums across England and there has been concern from employers that IfATE wants to make changes to the apprenticeships that could potentially be detrimental. In the case of NDT, this could be by removing the need for EN 4179 and ISO 9712 PCN/CSWIP qualifications, breaking the link to EngTech and IEng registration, and also removing the Technical Project. IfATE was keen to assure attendees that it would listen to feedback, hence my request that you all respond back to the formal survey from IfATE in last month’s article. BINDT is analysing these results in January and will be submitting its findings to IfATE by February. As NDT is not widely known about in IfATE circles, its Relationship Manager has been invited to meet some Rolls-Royce apprentices and Intertek has proposed a tour of its NDT facilities in Derby.

Alas, you cannot run ‘English’ apprenticeships in Scotland. If you wish to run a ‘modern apprenticeship’, Scotland’s equivalent to England’s NDT Technician, then both EAL and ECITB’s training organisations can facilitate these. This scheme could do with some improvements and several employers have met the parties from Scottish government to make changes. On 23 January, I am planning to hold a meeting at the University of Strathclyde for employers to discuss a degree-level ‘graduate apprenticeship’ (if you wish to attend, email: iain.baillie@rolls-royce.com). An update on both the modern and graduate apprenticeships should therefore be available by February.

The condition monitoring group of employers has appointed Tony Hope as its Project Manager. It is working with IfATE to see what is involved when it sets out to write new apprenticeship standards for CM. If you wish to join this group, please contact Tony at: tony.hope@solent.ac.uk

Iain Baillie is with Lead Employer Rolls-Royce and is involved with the NDT apprenticeships scheme. He is also BINDT President Elect.

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