JTL joins WorldSkills UK’s Centre of Excellence

JTL has agreed to become part of WorldSkills UK’s Centre of Excellence, with the training provider expecting a major boost to its education programme. 

Just 12 colleges and independent training providers were selected to join the Centre of Excellence scheme this, which is partnered and funded by educational charity and awarding body NCFE, although 20 others were initiated into the scheme last year. 

According to JTL, the Centre of Excellence is designed to ‘supercharge the quality and delivery of technical and vocational training by transferring world-class expertise and knowledge to help develop educators and learners’. 

One of the benefits available to colleges and training providers inducted into the Centre of Excellence scheme is that their educators will receive exclusive train the trainer sessions and 60 hours of intensive continual professional development.

In its recent Skills for Jobs White Paper for England, the Government cited the WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence as a prime example of how it wanted organisations with the relevant expertise to provide high-quality training and development for teaching staff.

Liam Sammon, Director of Learning and Innovation at JTL, commented, “We are absolutely delighted to have been selected to join WorldSkills UK’s Centre of Excellence. To be chosen as only one of 12 institutions entering the Centre this year holds an extra level of honour, which we are extremely proud of.

“As part of a successful application to be part of the pilot programme with World Skills, JTL has been assigned a ‘High-Performance Skills Coach’ to work directly with five of our tutors and trainers who will receive learning coach training, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to support their fellow teachers with a range of skills, practices, and methods to embed excellence into teaching practice and improve the learner experience.”

Dr Neil Bentley-Gockmann OBE, CEO of WorldSkills UK, added, “In order to deliver the world-class skills that employers demand to be internationally competitive, we need to invest in the educators that are training young people for the future.

“The Centre of Excellence is a radical new way of bringing global best practice to local economies. Mainstreaming excellence in training standards and delivering it directly to tens of thousands of young students and apprentices at their places of learning is key to levelling up the economy and attracting inward investment.

“This new phase of the project means that we are now supporting young people the length and breadth of the UK.”

The Centre of Excellence scheme covers three strands:

• Train the trainer modules
• Harnessing of international industry best practice through current preparation for WorldSkills Shanghai 2022
• Influencing setters of training standards.

The effectiveness of the programme will be tested by measuring impact on learners, educators and institutions in order to continually develop and innovate. This level of insight will help the organisations involved to develop a programme which will give more young people, irrespective of background, better work and life opportunities, and help boost economic productivity.