Education – You Get What You Pay For.
Recent news coverage of the increase in university course fees has highlighted that, as with anything in life, you get you what you pay for and education is no different.
Aside from university, there is a trickle-down effect that permeates all aspects of education when it comes to value for money and this makes vocational training particularly attractive as its effects are more measurable than the traditional academic model.
Holborn Training as a course provider is a case in point.
The company, which operates franchised Pitman Training centres in London and Manchester, focuses on training office work skills and particularly the diploma level Pitman Training Executive PA course, legal secretarial course, medical secretarial course and bookkeeping courses for all levels.
Managing Director Shilpa Wymer claims that vocational training allows for a direct measurement between the training and the likelihood of students getting into meaningful employment on the back of it:
“It’s simple, really,” she asserts. “If I spend £5000.00 on ‘bettering myself,’ will I get a job at the end of it that will liquidate my investment in myself? In very many cases, with a Pitman Training qualification, you will. That's measurable!”
According to Mrs Wymer, the key to getting a return on your training investment as an individual, or self-funded student, is whether your training is sufficiently practical to make you attractive to potential employers and the weight of the organisation awarding the qualification.
“Let’s face it,” claims Mrs Wymer, “Pitman Training is a brand recognised for 160 years as a mark of practical excellence in office work skills, so if you have Pitman on your CV, employers are going to have confidence in your ability to do the job. So there is obviously going to be a premium to pay for having the best training underpinned by the best known name in the business. It’s the same principal as having Oxbridge on your CV in academia. You get what you pay for”
So where does that leave people who struggle to find money to invest in their own skills development?
There appears to be a perennial societal problem in that wealthier people can afford better recognised training providers and universities and the idea of the “Big Society” doesn’t seem to be addressing this issue.
Shilpa Wymer again:
“That’s a fair point and we try very hard to help everyone who comes to us to get on the vocational education ladder with our monthly payment plans. And of course there are always Career Development Loans, which are just starting to be applicable again to our diploma course programmes. It’s not easy but it comes down to how much a student wants their qualification and the future it delivers and we’ll do everything we can to help them.”
But how many people who invest in their own education end up in the job of their dreams?
While no statistics are available, it is clear that having a big educational brand on their CV gives students a head start over their competition.
And with the current state of the economy, job seekers need to take every possible step to stand out from the crowd and demonstrate that they can deliver real value to employers, even if it requires a serious financial investment.
Holborn Training’s Pitman Training centres can be reached at www.holborntraining.co.uk or by phone:
London Notting Hill – 020 7792 5214
London High Holborn – 020 7025 4700
Manchester – 0161 923 6814
