For You - Tourism North East

Different Ways to Train - For You

Different ways to train - for you

As a business owner or manager looking to build your own skills and knowledge, what options have you got?

Attend one off business events, workshops, seminars and presentations

Regularly, across the region, different public and private sector organisations put on a wide variety of one or half day events, often for free or at very reduced cost. Usually focussing on a particular topic, these are an excellent way to learn quickly, get expert advice about your specific issues, network and find out who the best people are for more advice or guidance. Keep an eye on the Toolkit and the general press, sign up to alerts and cherry pick the best events for your needs. If you can't make an event, consider sending along a member of staff in your place or ask the organisers for copies of any information packs, presentations or hand outs. Click here to access our training calendar to search for one-off courses.

Attend regular sessions or business centre courses

Many of the development agencies and business centres across the regions run longer, regular courses specifically geared to SMEs. These require a greater investment of time, but can build specific skills or knowledge such as health and safety, financial management, advertising skills, dealing with international customers or staff leadership. Click here for more about the business support centres across the region.

Attend a local college or learning centre

Colleges, universities and learning centres across the North East run a wide variety of day and evening part-time courses. They offer both academic and vocational courses and some are certificated - so you come out with a recognised qualification. This is a more traditional approach to learning (though usually backed up by some very modern technical resources!), and may be attended by a wide variety of learners, not just business owners. The options are very wide - everything from Business Japanese to basic food hygiene and from designing a website to managing stress. Click here for more about colleges and learning centres in North East England.

Sign up for a distance or e-learning course

If you don't have the flexibility to attend a learning centre, consider distance and online learning. These have the huge advantage of allowing you to build your skills at home or at work, at a time and pace that suits you and are often cheaper, or even free. The BBC Language department, for example, offers free online courses in French, Italian, German, Spanish and many other languages, and also provide resources, conversation opportunities, videos and reading materials for more advanced speakers.

Online and distance courses don't necessarily mean you have to study completely on your own - many are backed up by email, phone or occasional face-to-face contact with a tutor. The downside, however, is that you don't get out of the workplace and mix with new people, or expose yourself to other learners' ideas and discussions, except through online forums and blogs.
Click here for more about distance and e-learning.

Training providers at your workplace

Another option is to organise training in your workplace. There are many private-sector training providers who will come to you and tailor a course to meet your needs. You clearly identify what you want to achieve and the training provider puts together a package which is delivered at your place of work. Although it can be expensive, other staff can train with you, sharing the benefit and increasing the returns on the cost. Click here for more about training delivered in your workplace.

NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications)

Learning in the workplace is also the perfect option for studying NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications). NVQs are flexible, practical qualifications that cover a huge variety of jobs, skills and roles at every level (from entry level to Level 5, which is working at degree level). There are no formal tests or examinations, you demonstrate your abilities through your work. There is a very large range of NVQs - over a thousand options - and, because they are module based, you can select the variety of modules that builds exactly the skills you are looking for.
See our NVQ pages for more information.

Higher Education Through Work

Once you become self-employed, it's understandable to think that's the end of your chance to gain a degree or other university level qualification. Whether you want the qualification to give your business more credibility, acquire in-depth knowledge about a particular subject, of just because you've always wanted to do a degree or masters, short of shutting the business and growing your hair, how can you gain a higher education qualification from one of the major universities? And when would you have the time to attend seminars and take the exams?

Higher Education through Work is an initiative that ten universities - two in the North East - have made available exactly for this reason. The programme works in a similar way to NVQs, by providing a flexible, modular framework that allows you to pick the subject areas to study in order to make up the most appropriate degree for your needs.

You study online - with the support of a tutor through email and phone - and if you wish to, you can attend seminars or occasional tutorials, though these, if offered at all, are generally optional. All the evidence for your degree comes from real work situations, which you submit online, and there are no final tests or exams. Costs are the same or better than ordinary degrees, there's no travelling time, you can access many of the regular seminars and course materials available to full-time students and, best of all, you can start applying what you learn to your business straightaway.
Find out more about Higher Education Through Work.

For more information or to take the next steps:

Talk to your Tourism Skills Broker (or, for a non tourism-specialist, contact the general Train to Gain service at www.traintogain.gov.uk or on 0800 015 55 45) if you want to find out more about: