Training providers join team to tackle training issues

8 April 2002 - Training providers will be teaming up with business and industry to tackle a set of key national training tasks.

Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) Board chair Stuart Hornery recently announced the establishment of an enterprise and training provider working group. (The ANTA Board advises the Ministerial Council of State, Territory and Commonwealth ministers responsible for vocational education and training.)

This year the new group are asked to advise the ANTA Board on:

* Ways to help training providers give enterprises the training products and services they need;
* What might be holding enterprises back from investing in nationally-recognised training for their people; and
* How to boost the number of partnerships between enterprises and providers.

The working group will comprise representatives from public and private registered training organisations (RTOs) and large and small enterprises.

Stuart Hornery said the Board had made the move so it could gain first-hand advice from RTOs and enterprises about ways to improve the training system and its products and services.

"If we are going to encourage Australian business and industry to invest more in training and get more people improving their skills, we simply have to talk to the people who are directly involved," he says.

"The working group will bring together providers and businesses to nut out issues and develop real-world practical solutions and ideas based on their first-hand, daily experiences."

ANTA Board deputy chair Bill Mansfield, assistant secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, will chair the working party.

The working group has also been asked to recommend ongoing strategies to keep training providers and enterprises involved in continuous improvement of the training system.

The group members are:

* Allan Ballagh, associate director, TAFE, RMIT
* Ben Bardon, executive director, Central West Community College, New South Wales
* Gillian Shadwick, chair, TAFE Directors Australia
* Rex Hewett, federal TAFE secretary, Australian Education Union
* Mandy Keillor, principal director, Keillor Building Associates
* Julie Moss, board member, Australian Council of Private Education and Training
* Julius Roe, national president, Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union
* Dominic Schipano, national executive officer, Communications and Information Technology Training Ltd (CITT)
* John Smyth, chief executive officer, TAFE Tasmania
* Carmel Speer, manager quality traineeship program, QANTAS Airways
* Lynden Wilkie, general manager human resources, Spotless Services Ltd
* Susan Young, national project director, Re-framing the Future, ANTA's national staff development project

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