Member Article

Qualifications overhaul for food & drink sector

Employers in the North East’s food and drink manufacturing industry could soon be able to offer employees the chance to gain universally-recognised qualifications through their own tailor-made in-house training programmes, attracting government funding in the process.

The region’s bosses have had a say in the overhaul of the industry’s National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs), which have been revamped with the intent of making them more flexible and more relevant to the work place. But now Improve, the food and drink sector skills council, wants to go a step further by directly linking in-house training to the new qualifications.

Jack Matthews, chief executive of Improve, said: “In the food and drink industry we have had a rather chaotic situation where dissatisfaction with the structure of vocational qualifications has led to different employers running different training courses in isolation from one another. This has contributed to a perceived shortage of skills that can transfer from job to job, and in some cases has posed a barrier to career progression for employees.

“Everyone agrees that the skills provision across all industries should be more streamlined and more employer-focused. Encouraging employers to run training programmes as part of an agreed industry-wide framework which leads to accredited qualifications should be one key route to achieving this. What is more, this could benefit employers financially by attracting government funding for the training they provide.”

A new Qualifications ‘Framework for Achievement’ in Food and Drink Manufacturing was unveiled by Improve this summer. From September, food manufacture NVQs, SVQs and other vocationally-linked qualifications will be implemented using the system, which learners can use to create a tailor-made qualification.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .