MOUNT MAUNGANUI, New Zealand—June 28, 2022—iskills, an Avetta company, is once again rated ‘Highly Confident’ in both educational performance and self-assessment by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). The industry-standard setting body has been giving iskills the Category One rating ever since the NZQA started offering External Evaluation and Review (EER) ratings in 2010.The consistently high ratings are significant because reviews take place every four years and each review focuses on different services and training. Iskills, an Avetta company, is registered and accredited as a NZQA Private Training Establishment and trained 6,347 workers between 2018 and 2021 across the Water, Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Construction and Infrastructure sectors. The NZQA administers educational assessments, qualifications and quality assurance of non-university, tertiary training providers, and the New Zealand Register of Quality Assured Qualifications.

The newest EER report states “iskills is a valued contributor to compliance management and workforce development, delivering relevant and practical training required by businesses operating within highly regulated environments.” The report adds that iskills offers “highly effective training” needed for highly regulated industries and delivers “comprehensive and well-documented continuous improvement processes” for a strong education that satisfies stakeholders.

The NZQA evaluation recognizes the iskills New Zealand Certificate in Telecommunications (Level 3) programme for enabling students to achieve the essential minimum qualification required by NZ’s telecommunications networks. The authority notes more candidates are seeking this option to gain recognition for work experience and knowledge. NZQA adds the evidence requirements and assessment processes are clearly defined and align with the authority’s requirements.  "The outcome speaks to our robust quality system and processes, commitment to continuous improvement, solid leadership, and outstanding training and assessment delivery," said Sharon Macquarie, iskills Director of Operations NZ. “Our trainers do an amazing job and are supported by fantastic management, admin and coordination teams. We're very proud of this result.” The report also highlights positive feedback on the learning experience, relevance and usefulness of the iskills Manual Handling short course, as confirmed by student and stakeholder surveys. This course is one of many critical risk courses that iskills offers to industry in face-to-face and e-learn format. Read the full 2022 External Quality Assurance NZQA report

About iskills, an Avetta company

iskills provides training for skills development and compliance requirements throughout New Zealand, mainly in the utilities sector (electrical distribution, water, traffic, streetlights and telecommunications). Most training is delivered by short courses (one to two days) in the clients’ workplaces. iskills also delivers trainee/apprenticeship programmes through a mix of block courses and on-job assessments and support. Alongside the training delivery, iskills specializes in workforce competency management and manages training requirements for large client companies and network asset owners. View a full list of iskills courses.

About Avetta

The Avetta SaaS platform helps clients manage supply chain risk and their suppliers to become more qualified for jobs. For the hiring clients in our network, we offer the world’s largest supply chain risk management network to manage supplier safety, sustainability, worker competency and performance. We perform contractor prequalification and worker competency management across major industries, all over the globe, including construction, energy, facilities, high tech, manufacturing, mining and telecom. For suppliers in our network, our audit and verification services help lower their safety incidents rate by 29%. As a result, nearly 50% of members find additional job opportunities within the first year of joining. In addition, our suppliers receive privileged access to the Avetta Marketplace, where dozens of partners offer special discounts for business services like insurance and work gear. Avetta serves 500+ enterprise companies and 125,000+ suppliers across 120+ countries. Visit https://www.avetta.com/ for more information.