Steps to Employment ITQ (Work Based Learning)

The ITQ provides an up-to-date, nationally recognised IT user qualification tailored to business and individual needs. Over 3/4 (77%) of the UK workforce use IT in their jobs, but one in 10 businesses say there are gaps in the IT skills they need.

The ITQ is helping to fill these gaps. It is designed for people using technology at work, in education, when looking for work and in their leisure time. The ITQ can help to improve productivity, effectiveness and businesses’ ability to participate in the digital economy. It does this by developing employees’ IT skills.

With the help of the ITQ, employers can:

• get in-house training recognised within a national framework
• assess the skills of prospective employees
• exploit IT for innovation, service, competitiveness and meeting business goals
• help investments in IT reach their full potential by making sure employees have the right skills to use the technology

People can study the ITQ at school, college or in the workplace. It can:

• help people find work – 92% of jobs advertised require IT user skills
• be tailored to different work requirements – as well as the use of computers and mobile IT devices, the ITQ can cover other ICT systems, including those used in engineering, manufacturing and teaching
• give employees the chance to put their newly learnt skills into practice
• be used to help with voluntary and charity work, for example with bookkeeping and fund-raising

The ITQ is based on National Occupational Standards (NOS) for IT Users 2009. Each ITQ unit corresponds to an area of competence in the NOS. Each learning outcome corresponds to an element of competence defined in the NOS. Each assessment criteria corresponds to a knowledge statement or performance criteria.

The learner has 2.5 hours to complete each assessment.

The ITQ units delivered for this qualification by Gower College Swansea are:

1. File Management and e-Document Production
This Unit teaches learners word processing skills such as entering and editing text, creating tables, cutting, copying and pasting text and file management skills.

2. Creating Spreadsheets and Graphs
This Unit allows the learner to develop spreadsheet skills to enter and edit data and to perform calculations; to use formatting tools to enhance the spreadsheet and to create graphs and charts using specified data.

4.Database Manipulation
The learner is provided with a database in which they enter and edit data; create queries to extract relevant information; create forms to present data in different formats and to print queries and reports.

5. Create an e-Presentation
This Unit introduces the learner to Powerpoint, allowing them to create a simple presentation, insert an image, enter text and to print the presentation in different formats.

6. Internet and email
In this Unit the learner will develop the skills required to create, send, receive and forward email; attach a file to an email; save an attachment from an email to a specific location; print email and web sites use search engines to access web sites and navigate to specific information and save web pages as favourites.

7. ITQ Mandatory Unit
In this unit the learner can choose to work on a scenario based task using any of the previous units. They then complete an Evidence Review Form in which they are required to think about who the task would benefit and why; what legal constraints are implicit in the task; what security considerations should be taken into account and generally encourage the learner to view the task in a real world setting.

Katherine Jennings