Tafe Queensland Brisbane Future Print programme, l-r: Joshua Iriving and Mitchell Green from Inprint; Dov Hirst, project manager with Future Print; Viki Nati from Horton Media; Aaron Terry from Tennyson Group and John Scott, project advisor with Future Print
The national Future Print Apprenticeship Project is up for review at a one day summit to be held in Sydney in September 16. The programme has just signed on apprentice number 190. The September summit will look at how it is travelling towards its aim of delivering a sustainable training model for the industry’s future. It will bring together stakeholders including PIAA and AMWU representatives, the RTOs and Future Print Advisors, employers, mentors and apprentices. They will help to evaluate how the system is working and gather feedback, ideas and information which the PIAA says will make the programme even more effective in its second year. Nearly 100 businesses are currently involved in this part of the $11m project, many offering formal qualifications and upskilling to their existing workforce, while others have taken on some of the 50 trainees who are new to the industry.
Future Print pioneers, l-r: Garth Austin, David Smith and John Scott, advisor with Queensland Future Print
The first apprentices have now achieved their first units of competency and therefore wage progression, with many hoping to qualify within the next 18 months to two years. Joan Grace, general manager for innovation, training and employment with the PIAA, says with 190 signed up the programme is well on its way to achieving its original target of 240 apprentices by the middle of 2015. She says, “We are enormously pleased with the way the industry has embraced Future Print so far. “With the terrific results we are starting to see and the continued input of our stakeholders, we are confident that the next year will deliver some even more exciting results.” The Future Print initiative as a whole recently celebrated its first year; Grace says it has chalked up a tally of achievements so far, with trainees successfully completing their competency units, briefings held and advisors inducted. A Business Transformation Project, funded by the federal government, has begun its Leadership Briefings, which will be held around the country in coming months to help printers take steps towards future-proofing their business. Running for the next two years, Grace says the Transformation Project will offer a suite of resources from business analysis and planning, to support and training across a broad range of business areas, and will complement the industry-based training offered by the Future Print Apprenticeship Project.
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