Free IT Training now includes Free Cerfication

Rabbitx

Maybe, for some jobs. It's still a pre-requisite for most public sector jobs. Practice makes perfect.

brody77

TorrestheGreat wrote: »

Not worth the paper its written on and may actually be detrimental to your CV.

Not sure what you mean here mate, why would it be detrimental to do courses from alison?

Rabbitx

Do local authorities, etc pay for ECDL training? By this, I mean, could your local authority be saving some money?

Rabbitx

One little bump, as I hope this maybe uesful to someone, and at least worth a look. There are loads of free courses available here.

loue79

As an IT teacher by trade and also someone who has trained the unemployed for four years ECDL is good to have on your CV. I would say that you need a qualification that is recognised eg by an exam board such as BCS who administer ECDL.

I have taught ECDL for six years and people sometimes do not meet the grade. It does give employers an idea that you were at that level at that time. Whether you maintain your skills at that level is a different matter.

For anyone looking to go one step up I would recommend ECDL Advanced as you can specialise in modules that you are interested in.

ScratchandSniff-->[X]

Rabbitx wrote: »

Do local authorities, etc pay for ECDL training? By this, I mean, could your local authority be saving some money?

Some are using Alison.com for the learning part of ECDL, although the extent to which Alison.com is being used varies. Remember that Alison.com makes money by trying to sell its learning managment system, but LAs will often have their own existing LMS.

That being said, such on-screen learning doesn't suit everyone. LAs are quite often staffed predominantly by those in their 40s and 50s whose learning preferences may have been formed by their traditional classroom learning at school. There's little point in them coming away from their work to look at Alison.com (or any other elearning system) if it's not the most effective way for them to learn.

Some LAs went en-masse down the LearnDirect line, thereby giving the UfI the ability to claim chunks of public sector workforces towards their performance statistics. Well those for starting a qualification anyhow, how many finished was another matter. That money still came out of the public purse, just a slightly different one. Other LAs worked out who needed the qualification, how they preferred to learn and delivered it accordingly with whatever blend was best.

As has been mentioned before, ECDL was generally seen by LAs in the days of e-Government as the way of improving the general IT literacy of their workforce (many of who as indicated by their ages predate widespread use of IT in the workplace), which generally speaking meant Level 2 not anything higher for most staff. If the job role only requires L2 IT skills then there is little point training someone for anything more complex as it will only push up your Council Tax. The ECDL's big selling point was (and is) that being a tested programme it was easy and cheap to administer compared to the bureacratic nightmare of NVQs.

I'd say that the days of widescale use of ECDL or other across the board IT qualifications in LAs is changing because that phase is largely past. Staff generally have "been there and done that" and it's only those whose role is involving IT for the first time who are now going through it. I can't comment about the NHS, but I'd anticipate a similar reason there. The move now in LAs under the local governement Transformation agenda is towards more tailored job-specific IT and bespoke systems. Theoretically the ITQ, which ECDL can accredit towards, is designed to tap such a market but is still not mature as a solution.

If you want to save money in local government, popping a few spods onto Alison.com isn't going to help. What you need is a cull of the (alleged) management.:rotfl:

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MoonCake wrote: »

I am currently doing the ECDL, and am doing it for the reason that my company are paying for it. However, does anyone agree that this is the easiest course out there? If I was an employer and saw that someone had this qualification I would not be impressed one bit.

There's a lot of entry level IT qualifications out there that are easier - BCS has e-citizen, and other awarding bodies have CLAIT, IBT etc. Also whilst you may well find it easy, others may not.

As for the attitude of employers, it's generally well respected IMHO, especially as has been voiced by others here, in the public sector. It depends what the IT requirements of the job role are, and you recruit accordingly. If the job needs someone with ECDL level but you recruit someone with higher ICT skills you will have an unmotivated member of staff who will quickly disappear having developed whizzy systems which can no longer be supported.

MoonCake wrote: »

The main reason I say this is because some colleagues have completed it in the recent past, and these people are still asking me how to add an attachment to an email and save a word document, and they have been getting over 90% in their modules!

Well yes, although in fairness the same can be said about any qualification. In ECDL it's most acute in Module 5 (databases). Assuming they have access to MS Access, staff may need to add or amend data, and use pre-designed queries, forms and reports, but relatively few will create them. For those that do, Module 5 does not go far enough - ECDL Advanced Databases (if given the necessary planning, design and normalisation theory) would be more relevant.

Good luck with your course (although by the sound of it, you won't need it). I hope it leads you to something more challenging that recognises your abilities fully.

Rabbitx

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou, an informative debate. ( I'm 47! ) We all need a better understanding.