site tech role

[BAJR]

In a way... no differently. You want to gain skills... you go and do a course or get trained by whoever offers these skills. ( it is also highly unlikely that every company will have every skillset in house) - I recently taught penmap survey basics in one company. to a level where they were now competent ( I saw the results ) Up here in Scotland, we are running courses ranging from topo survey to dendrochronology - all fully booked up. Accreditation is going to be the main thing to be solved. Not making it difficult ( like the ill fated NVQ scheme) but easy to be accredited for skills and ensure that quality is maintained. This reminds me... WE have a meeting soon about the next step. but are just about to complete the feedback on the original version. there are several alterations and comments that will help.

[kevin wooldridge]

Will the scheme also allow for accreditation by experience and competence? I am thinking in particular of survey, GIS and illustration skills. Just attending a course on ArcGIS or AutoCAD or Leica Survey is sort of meaningless in itself at judging competence. That comes with practice, application, experience and results. How does that get registered in the skills passport? And how about folk who are totally self-schooled (of whom David I know you know a fair few). Will it only be possible to use the skills passport on accredited courses? I have the feeling there has to be a certain degree of self-assessment involved in this scheme - unless the idea is to set up a network of assessors.

[Unitof1]

my passport already has archaeologist on it

[BAJR]

That comes with practice, application, experience and results. How does that get registered in the skills passport?

I quite agree that practice makes perfect and a 3 day course is not enough to make you competent. hence the three tier system that allows for

basic understanding, moderate understanding and full understanding -

So a basic three day course may find you with a Basic level tick and an assessors signature. Proof comes in ability - if you can prove it, then you can go for it... like a CSCS card.


How would you implement it?

[Jack]

I eagerly look forward to the inception of skills passports!

Think the only comment I had on the one Dinosaur showed me was it would be handy to have a column where someone 'sign offed' the skill and a place to write who did the sighning off....even it it was self-signed off.

Sorry if you've already thought of this..........older relatives and avian embryos and all that

[P Prentice]

With one exception, as far as I am aware every single digger that I've ever worked with who I am aware was a member of IFA had merely joined because they thought it would help them get a job (ha ha!) and had no interest whatsoever with the policies/politics/whatever and certainly wouldn't have bothered going to the effort of voting for anything. Most of them had long since realised that it was a total waste of money. From the posts on here it's clear that there are, in fact, a few politicised digger-IFA members (concede that), but precious few, it's always the same two or three individuals posting. Most couldn't give a t**s and are mainly interested in getting the h**l out and saving those precious beer-tokens for something more useful

Oh yes, as observed above, you're an excellent stir-target, keep it up, amazed how this thread has livened up :face-approve:

you sound fairly stirred yourself. your post though whilst probably well-received by some of the postees might be taken to imply that you only work with drones, perhaps because you dont keep the ones who think outside your box.

my posts are for the browsers, the undecided, and the ones who would like it to be different - but keep it up

[kevin wooldridge]

I think maybe there should be a basic competence which perhaps could be 'signed off' by a responsible adult, but thereafter many of the criteria will be based upon experience and aptitude and probably at the end of the day would be self-assessed, which of course lays the scheme open to probably unfair criticism. I can see how the system would work if someone was in regular employment, but am not sure how it would work if someone mixed irregular employment with self-employment and/or career breaks for various reasons.

In many ways the Skills Passport would duplicate the IFA levels of competence (where the basic level would equate to PIFA and higher levels to AIFA and MIFA). I am guessing that anyone who had applied to and received peer recognition for their skills level through IFA membership would automatically gain a 'fully operative' Skills Passport.....otherwise it seems unlikely that the IFA would support the scheme...and then once again the scheme would be open to the criticism currently levelled at some IFA members (i.e they only attained their grading through colleagues, friends and relatives).... So to that extent it is a conundrum wrapped in a riddle etc etc

There could be one advantage over the IFA (which despite its calls for CPD appears to enshrine a grading once conferred ead infinitum). Maybe the Skills Passport could have cut-off points where skills have either to be 'renewed' or updated. I mean a project officer grade person who last dug 20 years back might be able to get someone to certify that they were once a competent excavator, planner or surveyor, but would those skills acquired then stand up to present-day scrutiny. Of course some would, but others might need a refresher course or even a 'physical' competance test....likewise in some sectors of our profession speed is everything, in others a more leisurely approach is possible. How does that get assessed? Not sure how enticing a prospect such cut-offs would make the scheme though.

A final point. There have been some mentions of databases available for skills updating, consultation by employers etc etc. That seems to me to involve expense. Would the Skills Passport be any cheaper to maintain than the current IFA membership scheme? Would there be a renewal or processing charge?....like the ill-fated NVQ scheme the costs of some of these things could be a big deterrent in attracting enough participants to make it effective....

[BAJR]

Ah.... the skills passport is more like a stepping stone to IfA membership as well as a handy dandy document that validates skills. (like CPD ish)

PIFA AIFA and MIFA are (in my opinion) a red herring with Project Managers being AIFAs and some field workers as MiFA I even know a Curator who is a PIFA.

Given that an illustrator can be a MIfA but could not run a site it is all confused.

[P Prentice]

Ah.... the skills passport is more like a stepping stone to IfA membership as well as a handy dandy document that validates skills. (like CPD ish)

PIFA AIFA and MIFA are (in my opinion) a red herring with Project Managers being AIFAs and some field workers as MiFA I even know a Curator who is a PIFA.

Given that an illustrator can be a MIfA but could not run a site it is all confused.

these are indeed salient points which need addressing particulaly as running a site is a long way off managing a project to successful completion and lets face it many managers cant dig for toffee neither

[Unitof1]

sorry folks the bench mark now needs the mastery of baysian statistics which is second nature to me