Specialist industry awarding body EAL has reached a major milestone giving more than a thousand young people a gateway to a rewarding career – providing crucial End Point Assessments (EPA) for their apprenticeships.
The process means they become certified and qualified in their trade and profession, for a broad spectrum of engineering disciplines.
The one thousandth person to successfully progress through the new assessment method was Rail Engineering Technician Michael McKenzie who works for Siemens PLC.
Reflecting on his EPA experience Michael said: “The EAL team made the interview feel professional whilst also relaxed which helped me to really showcase my knowledge on what I had learned throughout the apprenticeship”
EAL, which is part of the Enginuity Group, is recognised as playing a major role in ensuring continuity through the Covid crisis, with approval from the regulators they have implemented remote EPA across 14 standards from their portfolio of 27, allowing learners to qualify for positions vital in keeping industry and engineering running.
EPA is the verification and benchmarking process which ensure that standards are maintained, and the quality of apprenticeships safeguarded.
Managing Director Alison Parkes said: “This is a very important milestone for EAL of which we can be very proud.
“We are delighted to have continued to safeguard standards and apprenticeships throughout the last 12 months – despite all the challenges of a global pandemic.
“We continue to help learners, industry and engineering combat the economic and logistical effects of Covid – and are ensuring that we are well positioned to play our part in powering the recovery process to ensure our Centres survive and thrive through these unprecedented times.”
EAL deliver the EPA for the Engineering Technician apprenticeship standard in collaboration with The Institution of Mechanical Engineers. EAL have delivered EPA for a wide range of employers from large corporates through to SMEs that are vital for the sector.
Colin Brown, Chief Executive of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “Achieving certification of 1,000 End Point Assessments is a fantastic achievement which the IMechE as a collaborator with EAL is delighted to be a part of. Our relationship continues to flourish as we work with more apprentices, employers, and training organisations, and we are excited for the next milestone to be achieved.”
The news comes as EAL prepares to roll-out ‘Prepared’ a new end-to-end learner management system which streamlines the assessment process, takes away the administration burden, reduces the workload on training providers and employers and ensures that they can monitor progression of the learner at any point in the EPA process.
Jackie Kenworthy, Interim Section Lead, Healthcare and Education at Barking & Dagenham College said:
“EAL’s End Point Assessment service has been excellent and supported our learners to achieve their apprenticeship. They are the trusted, specialist EPAO in the engineering sector and are incredibly supportive to us as a College – continually finding ways to further enhance and improve the process. We congratulate them on this amazing milestone. “
www.eal.org.uk @IMechE
Photo credit: EAL
