The Older Learners Programme - Experience Counts - seeks to encourage Sector Skills Councils to collaborate with colleges and learning providers to develop and deliver bite size or taster courses aimed at the older learner (age 50 and over) within their sector. This Programme is funding projects which are aimed at improving the employability skills of older people currently in work. The Programme will deliver a total of £550k over the three financial years from 2005 - 2008.
Aims
The aims of "Experience Counts" are to:
- Encourage partnership working between SSCs, learning providers and employers
- Support training needs analyses targeting the skills needs of the 50 and over workforce with particular emphasis on employability skills
- Encourage older workers back into learning - to make them more productive in their current job and raise their confidence to acquire new skills
- Support the development and delivery of learning opportunities in response to the outcomes from the training needs analyses
Pilot Phase
Three SSCs have participated in the pilot phase of this programme :
- Lantra
- Skills for Logistics
- Skillsmart
All 3 SSCs submitted proposals which have now been approved and projects are now underway.
Stage 2 - Roll out to SfB Network
A further 4 SSCs were successful in securing funds from Experience Counts during Stage 2 of the programme. These were :
- GoSkills
- People 1st
- LLUK
- SEMTA
Stage 3 - Collaborative Bid
Notes of Interest were invited from groups of Sector Skills Councils to work together on a collaborative project, the closing date for these was Monday 25th September 2006.