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South-West Regional Skills Forum
Quarterly Activity Update

Volume: 2, Issue: 1, Quarter 1 2019 

Skills Headlines for SW Industries

Apprenticeships in the South-West 

Apprenticeships in Ireland are undergoing significant change, renewal and expansion. Alongside the 27 traditional trades, delivery of 18 new apprenticeships has commenced since 2016 in areas as diverse as financial services, hospitality, manufacturing, biopharma and ICT.

In the South-West, CIT will commence its 4th delivery of the manufacturing engineering apprenticeship this summer and the first delivery of Kerry ETB's commis chef, and Tralee IT's sous chef apprenticeships are now underway. The ICT Software Developer apprenticeship has also started in Cork ETB, with plans underway for the delivery of the Lab Analyst Apprenticeship and the Logistics Associate apprenticeship in CIT later this year.

For a full list of new apprenticeships click here and visit www.apprenticeship.ie for further information.

Skills to Advance: ETB Employer Development Supports

The launch of Skills to Advance in September 2018 marks an exciting new development in further education and training provision. Delivered by local ETBs, the initiative provides direct funding supports for SMEs who need assistance to invest in and develop their work force and offers valuable skills development opportunities for those in lower skilled jobs to upskill in areas aligned to employer needs. To learn more click here.

Future Jobs Ireland: Preparing Now for Tomorrow's Economy

The Department of Business, Enterprise & Innovation has launched its Future Jobs Ireland: Preparing Now for Tomorrow's Economy. The strategy emphasises the importance of up-to-date skills and life-long learning to meet the needs of the evolving global economy, emphasising in particular skills in leadership and management, robotics, AI and automation to enable SMEs adapt to technological disruption and exploit emergent opportunities from digital and green economies. For a full copy of the report click here.

Explore: Digital Upskilling programme for operators

Following its successful pilot in 2018, the South-West Regional Skill Forum are seeking expressions of interest for Explore 2019. Explore is a fully funded, flexibly delivered 6 week digital skills coaching programme targeting experienced operators in manufacturing who would like to re-engage in upskilling to meet changing digital skills requirements within their companies. Delivered by Cork & Kerry ETBs, the programme includes 2.5 full day digital skills workshops plus additional 1-1 coaching supports over a 6 week period. For further information click here.

Springboard 2019/2020

The South-West higher education institutions have submitted a range of upskilling proposals across a diverse range of areas from ICT, to manufacturing, pharma, hospitality, construction and management in response to the Higher Education Authority's (HEA) open, competitive call for Springboard+ funding in Q1.  The Springboard+ initiative provides between 90 and 100% funding for successful programme proposals in areas of identified skills needs.  The suite of 2019/2020 funded Springboard proposals is due to be announced in Q2 with delivery commencing from September 2019.  For a list of 2018/2019 Springboard programmes by SW HE providers, please click here.

SW Inaugural ICT Round-Table: Q1 2019

In January 2019, the Forum hosted its inaugural ICT round-table with 20+ leading SMEs and MNC from across the region and Computer Science/BIS School and Department Heads from UCC, CIT, IT Tralee, Cork/Kerry ETBs and Skillnets.  At the round-table, chaired by Denis Mc Carthy, CEO, FEXCO, companies collaboratively agreed 8 priority areas of skills needs across the ICT sector in software validation/testing; technical sales; fin-tech; dev ops; cyber security; data science/analytics; software devt/programming & AI . 

As part of this process, we are asking ICT employers from across the region to input on their top three skills gaps across the 8 roles relevant to their company by completing the following short survey before COB 5nd April: https://bit.ly/2BEPw2C and will use these insights to inform next steps programme developments/refinements optimally align to local industry needs.

 

Sean Ryan, CEO, Aspen Grove Solutions; Bob Savage, VP EMEA Centres of Excellence, Dell EMC; Denis Mc Carthy, CEO, FEXCO, Dr Siobhan Bradley, SW Regional Skills Forum.

Manufacturing, Engineering & Construction Updates:

Addressing Industry 4.0/Smart Manufacturing Skills Needs

The Forum held an Industry 4.0 Skills Requirements Planning Session for the South-West in UCC in December 2018 where advanced manufacturing companies collaborated on core competencies and skills required to address their expanding Industry 4.0 requirements.  A number of new programmes are now in development with the South-West higher education institutions to address identified skills requirements and a further industry session is planned in Q2 to finalise programmes with industry support.  If your company is interested in supporting our industry 4.0 work, please click here.

Addressing BIM Skills Needs

Chaired by James Duggan, Arup the Forum hosted a BIM Skills Requirements Planning Session for the South-West with engineering & construction companies in CIT in December 2018 to agree priority skills needs for the sector and education/training supports required to address these with BIM experts from CIT/UCC/Tralee IT and Cork ETB.  Plans are now at an advanced stage to deliver new BIM programmes in the following from autumn of 2019:

  • BIM with Revit [Tralee IT, Level 6, 10 ECTs - delivered online]
  • BIM for Engineering Services [CIT, Level 7, 20 ECTs.  Piping Specifications, Process Systems, Revit MEP, Piping 3D Design]
  • Building Information Technologies [CIT, Level 7, 15 ECTs.  3D Built Environment Modelling, Collaborative BIM]

Engineering your Talent Pipeline: Upcoming Event

As demand for engineering talent continues to escalate, there is a growing demand from industry across the South-West for focused, proactive initiatives to alleviate the supply challenge. CIT are hosting a workshop to explore options and potential strategies to address current challenges and identify new options for the production of engineering talent in line with current and projected demand forecasts. For further details and to register, click here.

Construction Contractors - Employ more Apprentices through the Apprenticeship Sharing Scheme

CIF members are working to create co-ops whereby a number of construction companies work collaboratively to provide training for new apprentices throughout the industry.  The Shared Apprenticeship Scheme allows co-op members will be able to move the apprentices between their companies to ensure continuity of engagement and training should one area or particular project become more or less busy than another.  For more information, visit: https://bit.ly/2uwlASz 

Learn More About the Forum:

Who We Are:

The Regional Skills Forum is a Department of Education & Skills initiative bringing employers and education and training providers together to collaboratively develop skills across the South-West region.

Our focus is on identifying skills needs – existing & projected – and putting in place collaborative action plans between industry and education/training that build solutions to these so local talent supply is as well aligned to local industry need as possible.

For more background & a summary of some of work to date please click here.

For more information or to become involved,
Contact our Manager, Dr Siobhan Bradley at siobhanbradley@regionalskills.ie 
or by phone
 087 703 3176
Copyright © 2018 South West Regional Skills Forum All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
CAMMS Office,
Institute of Technology Cork
Rossa Ave
Bishopstown
Cork
siobhanbradley@regionalskills.ie

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South West Regional Skills · Cork Institute of Technology · Cork · cork, cork 0000 · Ireland

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