News

25 February 2006 - Becta applauds the Retail Academy

As a core partner of the Retail Academy consortium, MyKnowledgeMap is delighted with the glowing case study recently published by Becta. http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resid=13394

Becta is a key agency in the strategic development and delivery of ICT and e-learning strategy for schools and the learning and skills sectors.

The Retail Academy was formed in 2002 to provide training and knowledge support to the retail sector and to promote the development of retail skills throughout the UK. To do this, it has been engaging with Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in providing collaborative and innovative training provision.

Becta collected evidence from the consortium’s college and private sector partners to see how well it was doing, and conclude that this national initiative represents a successful model of the demand side and the supply side working together to:

• Meet real business challenges
• Provide high quality training solutions
• Achieve long-term sustainability

Recognising the retail sector’s low take-up of qualifications, Becta was impressed by the wide interest and positive user feedback already attracted by Retail Detail, the Retail Academy’s online business support system launched in September 2005.

Retail Detail has been designed and developed by MyKnowledgeMap for the Retail Academy with retailers’ needs to the fore, being cost-effective, flexible, available in ‘bite-sized’ chunks where and when the learners need it.

The case study concluded that the “Retail Academy was an innovative model of public/private partnership… in an extremely competitive trading environment… [containing] many innovative features” and predicted that the model “could be transferable to other sectors”.

With MKM winning the contract as Learning Solutions & IT Base Developer for improve (food & drink sector skills council), Becta’s prediction is already coming true.