Northern Ireland Springs into Action on Traditional Building Skills Front
01 July 2009, Since the launch of the NHTG Traditional Building Craft Skills report for Ireland in January 2009, the Northern Ireland Working Group has made great progress on the first steps of implementing key aspects of the skills action plan.
One of the most pressing needs is to develop the traditional building skills training infrastructure within the province and NIEA has moved quickly to develop a Traditional Building Skills Centre at its depot in Moira, County Down.
Concentrating initially on stonemasonry, three pointing walls (random and ashlar stone and brick) have already been constructed and physical on-site facilities necessary to support the training will be completed by September 2009. A ruinette is also planned to allow practical training on repair techniques, such as, grouting, indenting and rough racking. Further craft skills will also be considered in the future. This unique facility will allow in-house training of NIEA Built Heritage craftspeople and building professionals and deliver short duration courses for private sector craftspeople in conservation, repair and maintenance. A Training the Trainers programme is also planned.
Southern Regional College in partnership with NIEA will also be delivering short duration stonemasonry courses at the centre in Moira and their college campus. They have also already helped an experienced stonemason to become an approved assessor for the Heritage Skills NVQ Level 3 in stonemasonry and craft masonry, linked to their assessment centre. Further assessors in other craft occupations who are based in Northern Ireland are being sourced to develop the opportunities for craftspeople to acquire this qualification across the various craft disciplines. Again, NIEA has taken the lead and is in the process of helping its craftspeople to work towards the Heritage Skills NVQ Level 3.
On the strategic front, an application for pilot funding from the Department for Employment and Learning is currently being developed by ConstructionSkills in Northern Ireland. This aims to help up-skill the current workforce and includes on-site assessment for the Heritage Skills NVQ Level 3 for experienced craftspeople without a qualification and piloting a Heritage Apprenticeship Programme based on that currently being developed by the National Specialist Team within ConstructionSkills.
Discussions are also taking place with the Construction Employers Federation regarding a heritage endorsement to the Construction Skills Register (CSR). The Working Group is also actively working to try to increase client demand for this type of evidence of competency and health & safety awareness to work in this sector of the construction industry.