Electrical Connection Autumn 2017

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34 E L EC TR I C AL CONNEC T I ON AU T UMN 20 1 7
trying tirelessly to get his foot in the door
but couldn’t.
“I had another boy who wanted to
be a bricklayer. I went to the association of
bricklayers and asked if they had a list of
brickies who are taking on students. Their
response was: ‘No we don’t’.
“I would have thought that would be the
first thing they had.
“We need a better way of matching
students who want work experience
with workplaces willing to give students
that opportunity.”
Ideally a nationwide system should be
put in place to help match school students
and electrical workplaces.
It would be mutually beneficial for
schools and the electrical industry to form
a networking partnership facilitating
better communication so students have
good access to all the information and
opportunities available.
ALTERNATIVEPATHWAYS
In July 2016, the National Electrical
and Communications Association (NECA)
commenced a project that would trial
newmethods of delivering electrical
apprenticeships, among other things,
across the country.
Known as the Innovative Delivery and
Pathways Project, or the Alternative
Pathways Project (APP) for short, this
pilot program aims to test and open up
alternative training approaches on
a broader scale providing greater
skills development, choice and
industry acceptance.
“The APP is one outcome of the
employer engagement aspect of the
Federal Government’s Mentor Advisory
Program (MAPS),” NECA chief executive
Suresh Manickam says.
“MAPS was essentially designed
to prove one thing: if you boost the
number of mentors, or target themmore
effectively, you get a better outcome and
better completion rate.
“Of course, this has long been seen
as common sense, but now there is
science behind it.”
Suresh explains that while the MAPS
program was a good exercise, NECA
wanted to take things further.
“We wanted to truly understand what
employers want to get out of employing
apprentices, what apprentices want
as well as RTOs and GTOs. Instead of
looking at one plane, we wanted to look
at multiple planes.
“This led to the creation of a report
that generated some 30 different
recommendations surrounding
apprenticeships.
“We took this to parliament and
explained to everybody who would
listen that we had an opportunity to
refine the apprenticeship program. The
government agreed and allowed us to
refine four distinct areas within the
larger apprenticeship.
“This is where the APP comes in.”
The APP will operate across Australia
for a two-year period and will be
delivered by both public and private
sector training partners across the
electrical contracting sector. It will
explore opportunities to encourage
broader skills development approaches
for entry level and qualified tradespeople
to enter the sector.
Within the four core activities
there are a prescribed number of
programs that will be developed and
trialled to address a number of critical
issues needing attention in skills
development and training approaches
in the highly regulated electrical and
communication industry. Each initiative
will be developed in consultation with
partner providers, i.e. NECA, relevant
departments, and employers.
“The first area we are looking into
is ‘pre-vocational’. We are looking at
numeracy and literacy standards as well
as our learning management system (LMS)
and how to make that better,” Suresh says.
“The second area is emerging
technologies that are entering our market.
Arguably there are more emerging
technologies in our market than any
other, particularly around renewables and
energy efficiency. So is education keeping
up with these technological advances?
“The next question is how do we
attract more people to our trade? In
particular, our current attraction rate for
female and mature aged apprentices is
very low. As is our participation rate in
rural and regional areas.
“There are different reasons for each of
these groups. For rural and regional areas
there’s the tyranny of distance issue as
well as funding and scheduling. For mature
aged apprentices, there’s an ongoing issue
of wage rates - mature aged apprentices
offer better productivity than their
younger counterparts but they cost more.
“If you want to look at addressing
the skills shortage, you have to look at
broadening your participation rate.
“The fourth area we’re looking at is
what we’re doing as far as workplace
support is concerned and the
effectiveness of current measures.”
This is a very significant undertaking on
the part of NECA, but changing attitudes
towards the electrical industry as far as
potential apprentices are concerned can’t
be left to one organisation.
Together, we can ensure the best
people are entering the workforce... and
staying there.
> NECA
While the MAPS program was a good exercise, NECA
wanted to take things further.