New Zealand Scaffolding Apprenticeship
Members of the Board of the Scaffolding Association Australia (SAA) have now had 2 meetings with Vertical Horizonz New Zealand (VHNZ) & Vertical Horizonz Australia (VHA) to discuss and learn more about the Apprenticeship in Scaffolding (Trade).
VHNZ & VHA have over 25 years’ experience in providing NZQA and ASQA accredited safety training and they have a profound dedication to developing world class safety training that is engaging, meaningful and successful. VHNZ are one of the 2 providers in NZ who deliver the Apprenticeship in Scaffolding (Trade).
Here’s some information about their scaffolding apprenticeship https://verticalhorizonz.com/trades-and-apprenticeships/scaffolding/
The purpose of this approximately 19-34 month apprenticeship programme is to provide New Zealand with people who will work with both simple and complex scaffolding structures, and are competent to operate as qualified scaffolding tradespeople across commercial and residential construction sectors. Graduates will be eligible to apply for the scaffolding Certificate of Competence (both Elementary and Intermediate) as required under Health and Safety Regulations.
Graduates of this apprenticeship will be able to:
- Apply technical knowledge of maintaining safety and slinging loads to develop a safety plan and a rescue plan to manage risks when working at heights
- Lead a team to complete complex scaffolding works
- Erect, alter and dismantle simple and complex scaffold structures, ensuring compliance with health and safety legislation and the Good Practice Guidelines for Scaffolding in New Zealand
- Apply technical knowledge of loading and material properties to design simple and complex scaffold structures to meet client requirements.
Delivery of this apprenticeship is via a mixture of face-to-face learning on and off the job combined with extensive on-job learning, some e-learning may also be included.
Long has the current state of Australia’s scaffolding training been a concern for both SAA Members and the scaffolding industry at large.
The SAA aims to tackle the difficult issue of scaffolding training in Australia, which leads into the skills shortage that Australia is currently facing. Scaffolding training is notoriously underdeveloped and basic scaffolding tickets are handed out after as little as a 5 day training course, sending under trained and under qualified people into a high risk industry.
By collaborating with VHNZ the SAA aims to:
- Understand the requirements of the NZ Apprenticeship in Scaffolding (Trade)
- Compare this to the current AUS training (HRWL & Cert III in Scaffolding)
- Create a gap analysis between the 2 countries training systems
- Use this gap analysis along with other relevant information to campaign for improved training for Australian scaffolders
The SAA and VHNZ will continue to meet to discuss and collaborate further on building our relationship between the scaffolding communities in each country and how we can work together to affect change.
We thank VHNZ & VHA for their help and look forward to continuing to work with them in tackling this industry issue.
