Marine Engineering Apprentice Employer

Name: Eddy Perry

Job Title: Training Manager

Company: Fleet Support Limited

FSL ADVANCED APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMME

FSL apprentices undertake the Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technology Alliance (SEMTA) Advanced Apprenticeship Programme. The scheme employs up to sixty apprentices. Trainees undertake a variety of courses across a range of trades. The company recruits fifteen to twenty apprentices each year, including adult learners. Presently the oldest is forty-one, and the youngest entrant this year will be just sixteen. Two young women will also make up part of this year’s group.

Their Training Manager, Eddy Perry, says “Mixing ages as well as gender stabilises the groups, adds maturity and brings a hint of competition to the programme”. This formula has generated a high level of achievement, maintaining retention above ninety-percent. Programmes run for between three and four years, depending on the learners’ age at start date. Salary increases are based on each candidate’s ability to meet the programme’s specific learning criteria, and all apprentices complete their awards within the Learning and Skills Council’s (LSC’s) pre-scribed time-scales.

In addition to managing FSL’s scheme, Eddy is a member of SEMTA’s Marine Sector Strategy Group. The committee’s input helps this Sector Skills Council steer its policies and procedures in the direction the marine industry needs, thus generating the type of training required by today’s employers. Through its recently published Sector Skills Agreement Eddy hopes SEMTA will be able to raise awareness of the quality and type of training now available for both new and existing employees.

Southampton City College, alongside its training provider City Training, has provided support to FSL’s apprentices over the last five years. Their flexibility and coherent teamwork has been crucial to the scheme’s success. Of the sixty trainees presently registered with City Training, seventeen have been awarded their Advanced Apprenticeship certificates this year. The company have already allocated these places to seventeen new entrants who will begin their training in September 2007. FSL also hopes to take on a similar number of trainees in September 2008.