Crucial role in industry training
By Phil Slinger, CAB chief executive.
Not many decades ago you became skilled in a profession such as joinery, plumbing or glazing by becoming an apprentice with a company where a skilled person taught you how to become a skilled craftsperson over a period of a few years, known as your apprenticeship.
After reaching the required standard you were then offered a job in the same company and eventually became the teacher of new apprentices, so the cycle continued. Little changed then with the ‘foundation knowledge’ and ‘skill sets’. Once qualified, undertaking an apprenticeship would be seen as giving you a job for life.
How things have changed today. While the foundation knowledge still underpins the skilled person, new skill sets are needed and required on a regular basis as legislation and technology advance at an ever-increasing rate. In some instances, old skill sets need to be unlearned to keep in line with new legislation and new technology.
Members of CAB, many of whom have training centres, offer skill set courses to train fabricators, service engineers and installers in their products, and have long stated that much of the foundation knowledge is missing in the industry, especially when experienced people are in short supply.
CAB responded to this by offering the first of its foundation knowledge courses, the ‘One Day Curtain Walling Essential Knowledge’ course.
For anyone who is new to the industry, or has never had formal training, the course offers the foundation knowledge about curtain walls, the principles of how they work, and how they are to be installed. The training course is a first step for CAB into what is planned to be a wide range of fenestration-related training, set up to support CAB’s growing membership. This first available training course, which is GQA qualified, also forms the foundation course required to begin the training to obtain a ‘CSCS Curtain Wallers Card’.
It is the association’s ambition to support the skills pipeline required in the sector, to set up foundation knowledge courses that cover each fenestration product group such as aluminium framed fire rated systems, ground floor treatments, and concepts of sliding door systems. Each course will be planned to take a candidate a day to complete and would be followed by a simple questionnaire to ensure the candidate is fully conversant following the course. Preferably, the courses would be taken in class, but distance learning using video conferencing can also be offered.
As the voice of the aluminium fenestration industry in the UK, CAB is well-placed to offer a national training scheme for members and the wider industry, not just as foundation courses for the awarding of a CSCS card but training provision in its own right.
Based at the picturesque Bonds’ Mill development in Stonehouse, despite the pandemic it is business as usual, and staff are on hand at the offices or are working remotely to answer any aluminium fenestration related questions.