The National Skills Academy for Railway Engineering (NSARE) has
awarded MyKnowledgeMap the contract for development and support of
the total skills infrastructure system for the Academy.
The agreement will initially operate for 5 years, and the first
phase of development will provide the support infrastructure for a
national accreditation scheme for training providers and trainers
in the railway engineering industry, together with a skills record
system for all engineering personnel in the industry.
Commenting on the relationship, Gil Howarth, CEO of NSARE, says
"We selected MyKnowledgeMap as our long term technology partner
after an extensive review process. It was not just their prior
experience in building similar systems for the Nuclear and Process
industries that attracted us, but also their experience, activities
and commitment across the wider skills agenda".
Rob
Arntsen, founder and CEO, said "We are delighted to establish this
long term partnership with NSARE and I look forward to us
implementing together a world class, total skills infrastructure
for the entire industry, from which we will offer similar
'SkillsBackbone' solutions for other industries and other
countries. I truly believe that the skills and training industry
will be one of the high growth industries of the 21st Century and
that MyKnowledgeMap are well positioned to fully participate in
this global market".
The NSARE
vision is that by 2015 the engineering workforce will have the
necessary skills to support the maintenance, development and
expansion of a first-class, cost-effective 21st Century railway
with every member of the engineering workforce in the railway
industry having demonstrable competencies,achieved through
accredited training provision. In addition, Network Rail recently
announced that it had awarded the concession for its Rail Training
& Assessment Accreditation Scheme (RTAS) to NSARE, with a
planned live implementation date of 1st January 2012, to be
underpinned by the MyKnowledgeMap 'SkillsBackbone' solution.
MyKnowledgeMap was founded in 2000 and has grown steadily to
become one of the UK's most innovative and successful learning
technology companies, winning awards such as the IMS Global Gold
Award for innovative work on the Assessment and Practice in
Learning Settings (ALPS) programme. MyKnowledgeMap manages various
large scale national infrastructure skills projects in the UK and
supports clients in government, large corporations and the
education industry.