EAL to support GTA England

Leading awarding organisation EAL (EMTA Awards Limited) has announced it will provide support for GTA England, an alliance of 25 like-minded group training associations who provide high quality, industry-developed training within the markets that they operate.

The move will see EAL provide ongoing advice to GTA England, as well as support to enable the association to achieve its strategic goals which include lobbying, self regulation and standardisation. As EAL is the only awarding body with a network of external verifiers, who confirm the validity of a company’s qualifications, their support will be vital in helping GTA England self regulate its member training associations.

GTA England’s members, the Group Training Associations (GTAs), are embedded in the engineering industry and enjoy the confidence of more than 16,000 employers. They each concentrate on hard-to-deliver disciplines and qualifications, as well as the harder-to-help young people that other providers often shy away from. They are intimately connected with many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as well as world-class corporations.

“The relationship is an ideal fit for EAL,” says Ann Watson, EAL’s Managing Director. “The not-for-profit status of GTA’s perfectly with EAL’s business model, in which we recycle our profits back to Sector Skills Council, Enginuity . This means every EAL qualification awarded is an investment in the future skills of the engineering industry. By working together we are able to deliver on innovations extremely quickly, and it will be a really strong partnership.”

Watson continues: “With our 40 years of experience using in-house industry experts to develop industry-led qualifications and GTA England’s experience in training and self-regulation, we felt this was a natural partnership. This is a great opportunity for us to  work with a group of organisations 100 per cent determined to enhance the quality of training available for those starting their careers.”

Steph Whalley, Interim CEO of GTA England, said: “Working with EAL and its team of industry experts and external verifiers will no doubt have both short and long term benefits for GTA England and the employers we engage with. We are thrilled to be working with an Awarding Organisation that’s whole premise is to work closely with the industry when developing its qualifications.”