Background

The Carlow Kilkenny Skillnet was established in January 1999 by a number of Senior Managers in organisations in the Carlow Kilkenny area. Initial discussions showed that the organisations shared common training problems, namely,
  • Access to information on courses / training, and new technologies available for training purposes
  • Sourcing training programmes
  • Finding courses that were relevant to the specific needs of each organisation
  • The location of available courses
By working together, these organisations have developed new, low cost, customised, and locally based solutions for their management and staff.

Objectives

  • To develop training and development strategies that would:
  • Be delivered locally to reduce cost
  • Be appropriate to the business need of the member organisations
  • Utilise the existing expertise within the member organisations
  • Develop a pool of resources within the member organisations so that learning could be transferred at minimum cost
  • Develop innovative and creative training and development instruments and strategies
  • Provide networking opportunities and interaction with other organisations
  • To establish training networks to address training needs of the member organisations
  • To promote the active participation in the training programme of enterprises
  • To facilitate an enterprise-led option to training
  • To address the reluctance of individual enterprises to invest in training
  • To develop flexible and effective methods of delivering training
  • To examine innovative methods of promoting training
  • To support value-added training initiatives

Funding

The Carlow Kilkenny Skillnet is funded by member companies and the Training Networks Programme, an initiative of Skillnets Ltd. funded from the National Training Fund through the Department of Education and Skills.

Skillnets

"Skillnets" are approved training networks, consisting of groups of companies working together at the strategic level to establish industry standards, sectoral competencies and certification processes.

Skillnets Ltd is a new industry-led body established to promote and support training in enterprises. Skillnets Ltd was established in 1999 to provide a structure within which the Training Networks Programme would operate.

The Board of the company is comprised of six business / employer representatives (IBEC, SFA, CCI, CIF), three employee representatives (ICTU / SIPTU) and three representatives nominated by the Minister of Education and Skills.