Sunderland travel agent secures apprenticeship scheme with Gateshead firm

Sunderland’s Hays Travel has opted for self-assessment and improvement planning software from Gateshead’s Mesma, in a move to better evaluate its apprenticeship activities.

Currently based at 25 Vine Place, Sunderland, Hays Travel has more than 220 people on its apprenticeship programme, who are learning the skills over a two-year programme to become consultants working in the company’s 165 UK stores.

They will also gain an industry-recognised qualification in travel services when they complete their training. The decision to migrate from a paper-based system to Mesma is said to offer greater longer-term flexibility and efficiency.

Mesma is an adaptable, cost effective web-based resource, enabling areas of the self-assessment process and the associated improvement plan activities to be allocated to authorised people within a training environment.

Its key purpose is to drive accountability to improve educational provision for students and learners. The technology, adopted by Carole Hodgson, the apprenticeship delivery manager, will improve quality assurance levels at Hays Travel in line with self-assessment plans.

Carole Hodgson is currently overseeing the system’s rollout across the 16-strong national team of apprenticeship leaders and assessors, who will be able to access the online software as they upload their own improvement plans and monitor progress anywhere.

Carole said: “As a training provider, Mesma offers us advantages around quality assurance, notably its a more effective self-assessment and improvement planning tool that provides easy-to-understand information at the touch of a button.

“Although it’s early days, we anticipate that it will become part and parcel of how we monitor and assess apprenticeship delivery going forward. This will allow us to retain quality processes that can be better managed on a daily process.”

Hays Travel is preparing for an additional intake of 160 new apprentices in August 2018, and says that technology will play a pivotal role in helping to deliver quality improvement around these and other future apprenticeship programmes as the education landscape changes.