New IT skills programme to rollout to communities
On 16 May 2005, the government announced a new programme, a first for New Zealand, to be run by the New Zealand Unlimited Potential Learning Foundation. It will be funded through a grant of $350,000 from Microsoft, and the equivalent of $100,000 in support from the government, as part of the Digital Strategy.
The Unlimited Potential grant scheme is to develop and deliver a series of free training courses for trainers in Community E-Centres in partnership with community and voluntary groups and Whitireia Community Polytechnic.
Two pilot centres, in South Dunedin and Helensville, have recently trialled the Unlimited Potential curriculum. Following the success of this trial, Whitireia Polytechnic has been selected to deliver a “train the trainers” course to other participants from economically disadvantaged communities around New Zealand.
The programme will run for trainers from Community-based Technology and Learning Centres. The State Services Commission's E-government Unit has agreed to act as interim lead agency for overseeing the 'train the trainers' programme until it is transferred to another government agency.
Each trainer who attends the Unlimited Potential Learning Foundation course will be required to train another trainer in their community and will commit to providing training to a specified number of people. It is estimated more than 4,100 people who currently have limited, or no, IT skills will benefit from this initiative within the next two years.
A series of ‘recruitment and orientation’ sessions will be held across the country in November 2005 and May 2006. Work is underway to develop and implement the “train the trainers” programme.
Community E-centres are usually charitable organizations and are always ‘not for personal profit’, e.g. any money made by the centre is invested back in the centre or the community it serves.
We invite you to watch this space for further information as work progresses to develop and implement the Unlimited Potential Learning Foundation programme.