SQT Blog

Over the years, on request, SQT have delivered training courses overseas. Over the years people have travelled from abroad to attend our public courses – indeed one person has just relocated to Ireland for nine months to attend our NEBOSH Diploma course. To date this overseas training has largely come from people finding our website or multinationals based in Ireland who ask us to deliver training at their sites abroad.

Delivery abroad accounts for roughly 5% of our business. Delivering abroad poses few problems. Tutors are willing to travel. English can travel. Our courses can travel.

We have now re-engineered our website such that our portfolio of courses available overseas is more organised and visible.

As always we will be available for all our Irish clients but being able to deliver abroad will add a further string to our bow. Enterprise Ireland have been encouraging and supporting us in this direction.

Exciting times indeed.

The Qualifications and Quality Assurance (Education and Training) Act 2012 was signed by the president on 22nd July. The commencement date is scheduled for a date this month. On that date Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) will be formally brought into being and FETAC, HETAC and NQAI will cease to exist. The new body QQI will also be responsible for quality assurance of the Irish Universities, a function previously performed by Irish Universities Quality Board (IUQB).

The legislation has in effect put in place QQI with a provider base across all areas of post-secondary education and training which will also be the custodian for the National Framework of Qualifications (NFQ).

Other changes are happening in education and training.
- The existing 33 Vocational Education Committees (VECs) are being restructured into 16 local Education and Training Boards.
- SOLAS (Seirbhísí Oideachais Leanunaigh agus Scileanna) is being established as the new Further Education and Training (FET) authority. It will be a body under the Department of Education and Skills (DES) and will be responsible for both the coordination and funding of FET. Under its mandate, SOLAS will ensure that the unemployed in particular are offered the upskilling opportunities necessary to get back into employment.
- The potential emergence of technological universities from amalgamated Institutes of Technology.

It is surely a time of change in Irish Education and Training.

Quality Ireland emerged in early 2012 from an initiative at the Quality Management Standards Committee hosted by NSAI. Its members come from a variety of backgrounds. It has now set up a LinkedIn group – Quality Ireland.

According to Quality Ireland, their LinkedIn group is a powerful communication network for people who share their vision of “A better Ireland” and support their mission ‘To promote and foster a culture of quality in Ireland to make life better for individuals, communities, organisations and society in general”.

Membership of the Quality Ireland LinkedIn Group is available, on a moderated basis, to people of all backgrounds who would like to support their work.

SQT with a festive look

Well we try!

Thank you for your custom in 2011 and looking forward to working with you in 2012. Hope everyone has a happy and safe Christmas from …

Margie, Eilish, Kim, Lisa and Jean

Lisa, Kim, Jean, Lily and Margie

Le gach dea-ghui i gcomhair na nollag agus na h-ath bhliana!

Ed Walsh returned to Ireland in 1970, a young man in a hurry, to set up an institute of education. He found a decaying mansion on a riverside site, gathered talented young people and secured funding from the World Bank and European Investment Bank to build what became the University of Limerick. Along the way, Ed made powerful enemies as he challenged official cant, traditional academics and clerical humbug. This is an inspiring, frank and often funny memoir by a passionate educational leader.*

Along with many others, I attended the launch of Ed Walsh’s memoir Upstart: Friends, Foes and Founding a University last Wednesday night in UL. My husband, Denis, was one of the first intake of students at the then NIHE. Gerry Higgins from Antaris Consulting (who deliver our Quality, Environmental and Health & Safety training), was also one of that group. It was a night of reminiscing for many of those in attendance. Former Ministers for Education Gemma Hussey and Mary O’Rourke gave very interesting and entertaining speeches. In Ed Walsh, they certainly got somebody who was not a bit shy about challenging anything and everything to make UL happen. In Ed Walsh, Ireland surely got an educational visionary.

* Source: Ed Walsh website

If you find yourself in Limerick with ten minutes to spare, pop into the Hunt Museum to see this free exhibition of photographs by James Fennell and Turtle Bunbury, (Turtle – what an unusual name!)

It’s a series of portraits of ‘characters’ from an Ireland that is rapidly passing … old men, old women. The detail, the lighting are amazing. Click here and you will get an idea.

Quoting from the Hunt Museum’s website:

In Vanishing Ireland: Recollections of our Changing Times, award-winning photographer James Fennell and bestselling author Turtle Bunbury once again journey the length and breadth of Ireland to bring us an extraordinary, powerful new collection of poignant interviews from ordinary men and women who share with us their memories, providing us with an invaluable link to our past.

Through words and stunningly evocative photographs, we meet the people of Ireland who lived through adversity and hardship during the formative decades of independent Ireland, yet whose courage, kindness and humour remains intact. We talk with those who watched friends and family sail for foreign shores, and lose ourselves in a world where life was simpler, yet somehow happier; where storytelling, fiddle playing, céilís and communal pastimes cemented the deep friendships that became the lifeblood of each community.

The exhibition continues until 23rd October. Definitely worth a visit.

We gathered to wish Siobhan all the best as she headed off to get married this week.

Wishing Siobhan and Sean health and happiness for many, many years to come.

As a HETAC and FETAC accredited training provider, part of our quality system agreed with both organisations is Programmatic Review.

Earlier this year we did self-evauation of our FETAC soft-skills programmes. We are now completing Programmatic Review of our HETAC accredited Six Sigma programmes. Next year we will be completing a FETAC five year review and Institutional Review for HETAC.

We will publish links to the reports on our website.

Our training partner of fifteen years, TMS Consultancy, has recently completed a detailed review of how they work and communicate with their customers and, as a result, to facilitate their continued expansion into new markets, they’ve changed their trading name to Antaris (a guiding star, which has played a key role in safe navigation since ancient times).

As TMS Consultancy, Antaris has been helping clients across a range of industries in Ireland, Europe and beyond, to address the challenges of managing their Health and Safety, Environmental, Quality, Accessibility, Energy and Corporate Social Responsibility issues for many, many years. The familiar faces of Gerry, Shane, Finbarr, Doug and Nick will continue to deliver in excess of 45 different training programmes with SQT Training, to the same high standard of excellence as before.

In line with their commitment to continuous improvement, Antaris has launched a new website http://www.AntarisConsulting.com, which provides more details of their management systems expertise, training and consultancy services and software solutions. They have also completed a significant upgrade of their flagship software product, Register of Legislation, which will be re-launched as Pegasus Legal Register on the 1st July. Pegasus Legal Register is a successful and innovative software solution that makes the daunting task of interpreting environmental and health and safety legal requirements and assessing compliance, easy and simple.

SQT Training has always been proud of our relationship with the Antaris Team and so we look forward to many more years of our business evolution and shared opportunities.

Our tutors in the area of Quality, Environment and Health and Safety are TMS Consultancy. TMS specialise in training and consultancy in these three core areas. TMS also however maintain registers of legislation on behalf of many Irish and UK companies. This internet based service assists organisation in understanding, interpreting and reacting to their legal requirements. It dramatically reduces the implementation costs associated with such systems and allows for organisation-wide involvement.

The TMS Register of Legislation service is the only ISO 9001 certified service of its kind in Ireland.

Here is the website of their register of legislation.

The benefits for an organisation include:

• ISO14001: 2004, OHSAS 18001, ILO-OSH 2001 and EMAS Regulation compliant.
• Expert interpretation of the organisation’s exposure/liability.
• Continuous updates on new/impending legislation.
• Any staff can access expert information anywhere they need it.
• Satisfies applicable legislative/regulatory conditions.
• Links the organisation to SIs, Acts, Regulations, Directives, Codes of Practice and additional guidance.

Organisations using this service from TMS  include:

• Analog Devices
• Alps Electric
• Avid Technology
• Banta Global Turnkey
• Cadbury Ireland
• Dell Inc.
• Element Six
• ESB
• ESBI
• Glanbia
• Guidant Ireland
• Hewlett Packard
• Kerry Ingredients
• Lotus Automation
• O2 Communications
• SMC Group
• Walsh Western

More information can be obtained by contacting TMS at 061 464666 or info@registeroflegislation