We’re excited to advise that our CEO Dr Troy Coyle has been elected as Chair of the Tertiary Education Commissions (TEC) Workforce Development Council (WDC) Interim Board for Manufacturing, Engineering & Logistics.
This WDC initiative follows a successful Expression of Interest (EoI) process, with 249 applications which resulted in a strong group of interim Establishment Board (iEB) members being elected to drive the formation of all six WDCs.
As part of May’s Budget Trades Training announcement, the decision was made by Education Minister Chris Hipkins to fast-track the WDC establishment, to help support New Zealand’s COVID-19 response and recovery.
Each iEB’s primary role is to establish the WDC as a legal entity. Where possible and practical, the iEB will also work with transitional Industry Training Organisations, the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology (NZIST) and other providers to inform the tertiary education system’s response to COVID-19 impacts.
TEC Chief Executive Tim Fowler saying “The selected members have strong industry connections and mana, brilliant governance and communication skills, and a fundamental appreciation of the value of education and training in skills development for industry and individuals. The unique and complementary blend of expertise across the boards will enable robust and innovative work to be undertaken that will be integral to the success of the future WDCs.”
As part of the new system, WDCs will work collaboratively to create a strong, sustainable, unified vocational education system capable of delivering the skills that learners, employers and communities need to thrive.
WDCs will contribute to the new vocational education and training system by:
- Providing skills and workforce leadership for the industries they represent. This includes identifying current and future needs and advocating for those needs to be met
- Providing vocational education investment advice to the Government
- Developing qualifications, setting standards, and moderating assessments
- Endorsing provider programmes
- Promoting the benefits of educating employees to employers.
At HERA, we believe this is a fantastic opportunity for us to have input into the reform of vocational education to create a strong, unified and sustainable system fit for the future of work and to deliver skills needed to help communities and businesses thrive.
This is of particular importance to the NZ metals industry who face many challenges in terms of skills gaps and shortages for our fabrication, manufacturing, consultancy and supplier members.
This is something we strongly tackled at our Future Forum Nation Breakfast event earlier this year by connecting industry with a panel of future engineers to understand what it’ll take to attract them to our industry in the future. It’s also something we’re actively working on as part of our Kotahitanga HR innovation cluster interest group works.
That’s why, we’d like to encourage our members and industry to forward any feedback on the WDC process they may have by getting in touch with our CEO Troy Coyle so she can take this back to the group.
We’d also welcome anyone who’d like to join our HR innovation cluster by contacting our Innovation and Transformation Architect Greg Buckley to discuss further.
Want more information?
Read the full press release from TEC here.
View the WDC Interim Board for Manufacturing, Engineering and Logistics here.
