Improving economic outputs of employers is one of the benefits of the qualifications provided by the Australia Pacific Technical College (APTC).
This is according to Director of Schools of Automotive, Manufacturing and Construction/Electrical of APTC Mr. Ian Wells.
“APTC is about delivering Australian qualifications to Pacific Island people. It has direct impact on employee prospects, potential salary increases for individuals and also provides increase economic output for employers,” Wells said.
Essentially those who take APTC programme will have higher skill level.
APTC which was officially opened earlier this year currently enrolls 145 students.
A further 85 students received scholarships and are due to start within the next month.
Of those numbers, there are approximately 25 to30 Samoans enrolled with School of Automotive, Construction and Electrical, and Manufacturing (ACEM).
It seems the areas of great interest to Samoan students are electrical and plumbing according to Wells.
“The two are quite popular, but it varies, we have a different focus in the different campuses,” Wells said.

APTC in the region
Based on Sunshine Coast, Wells says: “APTC from our perspective is a significant investment by the Australian Government with $150 million Australian dollars for 4 year period invested."
In addition to APTC, Boxhill is delivering tourism hospitality training, and Wells says in the near future the School of Community Service and Health will commence operations as well.
“While there might be two training Australian organizations we are promoting ourselves as APTC,” he said.
According to the Director, the unique thing about APTC, is that it is based on partnerships with existing training providers and existing organizations.
“Our belief not to duplicate existing training systems but wherever possible have a partnership with existing training providers,” he said.
The current formulation of the programme consists mainly of on site training according to Wells.
The trainees are given an intensive six to twelve weeks intensive training and the majority of the time the trainers work alongside the trainees in their workplaces in their home countries.

Challenges
Asked about the challenges faced by APTC in such a multicultural region Wells said location and language may be two key issues.
“Servicing the more remote locations and just getting to deliver training assessment in the workplace will be a challenge,” he said.
Wells also referred to some students on scholarships to other islands whom left their homes for the first time.
“Leaving their families, that brings issues for them,” he said.
The language barrier is a major issue, with the main medium of instruction being English.
“Training is delivered in English, where it may be their third or fourth language it brings issues for them, and also for trainers,” Wells said.

Future of APTC
However he added that support services are currently in place in Samoa such as counselors, literacy and innumeracy support to deal with such challenges.
A great deal of money is also being invested into customizing resources.
“So rather than use big long paragraphs, we will use lots of diagrams and pictures.”
According to him, a lot of training is technical hands on rather than theory based.
Wells said that APTC plans to build training facilities in Samoa at the value of close to $4million tala.
He said the tender will be out in late March, but added that although facilities will be built for APTC it will still be a partnership and joint sharing facilities with NUSIOT.
Wells leaves Samoa this week.


 

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APTC Country Prog. Coordinator for Samoa
written by Tosi Mata'utia, March 25, 2008

1. Mr Ian Wells is the Director of the project - Australia-Pacific Technical College (APTC). APTC consists of three schools: (1) School of Automotive, Construction and Electrical, and Manufacturing (ACEM); (2) School of Tourism and Hospitality; and (3) School of Health and Community Services (in planning phase).

2. APTC has four campus countries: Samoa, Fiji, PNG and Vanuatu.

3. APTC is not based at Sunshine Coast. ACEM is based at TAFE Sunshine Coast. APTC has a Coordination Office in Nadi, Fiji, that oversees the whole project with representatives in Vanuatu, PNG and Samoa.

Please feel free to contact the above named for any further information.

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