New Courses for 2012

Level 3 Principles of Auditing: 19th and 26th January

Level 3 General Allergen Awareness: 1 February (3 hours)

Level 7 How to Improve the Performance of your Food Manufacturing and Packing Operations – A Course for Senior Managers: 2nd and 9th February

Level 3 Developing Communication and Presentation Skills: 22nd March

Level 3 Principles of Microbiology: 19th and 26th April

Contact Debi Melbourne for further information:
01406 493000
holbeach@lincoln.ac.uk

Our vision for the NCFM in 2012 and beyond is to drive excellence through our extensive and relevant skills offer for the agri-food supply industries. This comes at a time when raising the skills level of the workforce has never been so important, and following the recent announcement by the Food and Drink Federation of the UK’s Food Industry’s Vision for Growth 2020 which sets out the vision of sustainable growth in the sector of 20% by 2020 in response to population growth and increasing UK and global demand for value added products.

In response to the increasing shortage of higher level skills in the sector, we continue to review our course offering and are widening our range of qualifications to strengthen post graduate research through the MSc, MPhils and PhDs. Our ongoing support and consultancy arrangements and extension of our product portfolio will continue to support companies but also ensure a national and international profile for the campus. 2011 saw our highest intake of Foundation Degree learners to date taking either Technical or Process Control routes, the introduction of IPQ (Improve Proficiency Qualifications) to replace NVQS has been met with positive feedback from employers too.

The University’s sponsorship of the University Academy Holbeach also goes from strength to strength with companies now seeing the benefit of building relationships and having access to potential recruits at an earlier age. These individuals may be looking for career opportunities in food manufacturing, NPD, technical, business administration, engineering, ICT to name a few. Our next careers fair for companies to meet with learners from the Academy and other schools is on the 7th February 2012.

The future of course will be met with challenges as we see the introduction of University fees and further changes to the funding of apprenticeships and IPQs (replacement NVQs). The Government have previously introduced measures to further strengthen the take up of apprenticeships; this has now been strengthened by Business Secretary, Vince Cable announcing incentive payments to small businesses to support 20,000 new apprenticeships in 2012/2013.

So whatever your business needs are, we hope that you will find the right training and support at NCFM.