News / News In Brief

Archived News for April 2001

LSC e-skills initiative
The Learning and Skills Council, working with e-skills NTO, employers and the Adult Learning Inspectorate and backed by Government, has launched a major initiative which will generate significantly higher numbers of people achieving high-quality ‘specialist’ and ‘user’ qualifications in ‘e-skills’ (information and communications technology) qualifications.
The project aims to build on the best of existing ‘vendor’ and ‘national’ qualifications, ensuring that they are simple, consistent and coherent and have national and international credibility. It will boost trainee numbers by reducing training costs. The project will be steered by the LSC working with other public agencies, leading IT companies such as Microsoft UK, major employers such as Lloyds TSB, and other key partners.
For further information, please click HERE .

ECDL and NVQ exemptions
The NTO has carried out a detailed mapping of the conformance between the ECDL and the S/NVQ "Using Information Technology Level 2". The mapping is bi-directional and shows to what extent, and in what contexts, holders of either qualification can be granted exemptions towards the other.
When completing an NVQ/SVQ “Using IT Level 2”, candidates can get exemptions from ECDL module tests. Please refer to the ECDL and NVQ/SVQ mapping page for a form to claim exemptions (included in the mapping PDF document).

"e-skills for the UK" Conference
Tuesday 8 May 2001,
Hanover International Hotel, Hinckley, Leicestershire
"Exploring the real gap in ICT skills across all sectors of employment and announcing new training, qualification and information strategies to overcome this need."
Competitiveness within UK Industry and Commerce is highly dependent on the availability of skills to support and service IT equipment. This one-day conference, organised by National Training Resources Limited, will announce new national qualifications and training capacity to support strategies to bridge this large skills gap. It will report on an e-skills NTO survey and pilot project with two hundred SMEs identifying their detailed needs for IT systems support. The Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and the e-skills NTO will underline the issues and update the conference on development and support strategies. This conference is particularly relevant to training providers and e-skills NTO members can benefit from a discount.
For further information, please contact Helen Bourke, Conference Manager, National Training Resources Limited on 19, e-mail or visit http://www.national-training.co.uk

Encourage your employees to have-a-go at Hothouse.comp!
e-skills NTO leads e-competitions, the focus organisation for quality IT competitions that support education and training. (Go to http://www.e-competitions.org.uk for details.) One of e-competitions most popular initiatives, the IBM sponsored Hothouse.comp, is currently promoting its 2001 programme.
Hothouse.comp (at local heat level) is a 2-hour Using IT competition in which competitors fulfil a role within a given business scenario that involves the input, manipulation, output, presentation and communication of information. The competition is run in-house by VI forms, colleges, universities and businesses, for students and/or staff, as a fun, assessment or CPD exercise. Finalists compete at the Hothouse - IBM's state of the art training centre in Farnborough - and their efforts are rewarded with valuable IT prizes.
If you would like further details about Hothouse.comp please contact Frances Sloan - Tel Email