‘Plenty of room’ for two trades schools

There is "plenty of room" for two trades schools in Dunedin, the head of a new specialist trades training hub says.

About 60 people attended the opening of the Skills Group Skills Hub in Bradford yesterday — a trades training facility for aspiring electricians and plumbers.

The hub houses the Skills Group’s three specialist trades brands: etco for apprentice and electrical training; industry connection for excellence (ICE) for plumbing, gasfitting and drainlaying apprentice training; and e-tec for advanced electrical training.

Skills Group chief executive Rosanne Graham said the hub would help grow Dunedin and Otago by attracting people to the city.

It did not "have any problem being an alternative offering to [Otago] Polytech" and the learners and employers would be the ones to gain from having another provider to choose from, she said.

Otago Polytech opened a trades and engineering training centre in 2023.

For regions to thrive there needed to be a choice of providers that suited different learners and options, and she hoped the hub would help "grow the pie of provision here in Dunedin", Ms Graham said.

"It’s not really a case of one taking from the other. There’s plenty of room for both of us."

The hub is housed in the former Tamahine Knitwear factory in Glenelg St, Bradford and was designed to accommodate up to 140 apprentices at once.

Skills Group specialist trades director Ben Stevens said the company was delighted to be able to support Dunedin and Central Otago by giving South Island-based apprentices and their employers more choice for their training, with less travel.

"This is a real positive for the region and will help meet the significant apprentice training demand across the South Island.

"It's great to have a presence here and create something new, something modern, using the best-quality gear and technology so that we can equip our apprentices for success."

Mr Stevens said the hub was the only plumbing training option in Dunedin, and people otherwise had to travel to Invercargill or Christchurch to get qualified.

ICE general manager Antony Russell said the campus would offer state-of-the-art, purpose-built training facilities as well as industry-standard equipment.

This included large roofed drainlaying pits, modular bathroom pods, new hand and battery tools, new workshop equipment, multiple 4+ assessment sets, large, bright touch-enabled displays and class sets of laptops.

Artificial intelligence (AI) would also be front and centre, and the use of augmented reality devices for gathering evidence during on-the-job assessments was being explored, he said.

Tutors would come directly from industry and have wide on-the-job experience.

The company also planned to open a second three-trades campus in Christchurch, in September, and had just opened a small electrical campus in Nelson.