Holmesglen Institute has been recognised by training authority Skills Tasmania as the Registered Training Organisation for print training in Tasmania, filling the gap left by TAFE SA following its announcement that it will withdraw from the state.

Printing Industries had been promoting Holmesglen in the island state, including at the inaugural Printers Convention it hosted in December, which featured the training crisis in Tasmania. PIAA issued pro forma letters to all printers in the State to express their support of Holmesglen Institute's application to Skills Tasmania.

Robert Black of Holmesglen Institute says, "The ability for Holmesglen Institute to deliver apprenticeship training in Tasmania is a fantastic result for Tasmania printers. They now have a public TAFE provider with on and off training capacity for apprentices, as well as the support of fully qualified trainers.

"This initiative has been months coming together and could not have been made possible without the absolute support of the PIAA, not only with the recent Tasmania forum but with the on-going lobbying of the key stakeholders.

“Companies will need to go through the official process for transferring apprentices from SA TAFE to Holmesglen, and contact their apprenticeship support network to commence the official proceedings.

“It is a blended delivery model, we support on and off the job training, along with online support. It is a sustainable delivery model, which we believe has proven to be the best option. A fully on the job model sees apprentices only stay within a single company, while this opens them up to other ways of working.”

Holmesglen Institute will be providing the Certificate III in Printing and Certificate III in Print Manufacturing under the agreement, extending their service from Victoria into Tasmania.

Andrew Macaulay, CEO of PIAA says, "Vocational Education and Training is in disarray in Australia, and printers have fewer viable means to attract, train and retain young people to the industry. Developing new people into printing is vital for a thriving sustainable industry, and we are thrilled that our continued emphasis in this area is producing results, albeit with a long road still ahead of us.

“What we have seen form Holmesglen is a commitment to the industry. It has created dedicated training facilities, invested, and is partnering with the industry, collaborating very cooperatively, and heading back towards the model that industry says it wants.

“We are delighted to see it going in this direction, with the element of hands-on, practical experience with equipment and real machinery.”

Holmesglen is in the process of finalising a new purpose-built print production centre, which will be officially launched next month.

Black says, “The centre is built in two parts, we have a purpose built computer centre that has digital simulation technologies, where we can teach machine operation and troubleshooting.

“We also have the Adobe Suite, and connectivity to our digital print centre, which has been supplied by Konica Minolta.

“So we have two fairly large rooms, one is for a computer room that supports the digital print centre. The digital print centre supports the computer room as well to a certain degree.

“In there we have the Konica Minolta AccurioPrint C2060L, the latest digital printer. We have a large Bizhub C1085 press with an inline digital booklet maker. Then we have the Accurio, the banner size press, and the Konica Minolta C71CF reel-to-reel digital label press, that is supported with two large-format inkjet HP presses, the HP Designjet Z6800 and Z5600.”

Macaulay says, “We are actively encouraging Australian Governments to reinvigorate the TAFE training facilities that they already have, and we are pleased to see real evidence our message is being heard.

“It is a win for the industry, and we are happy. It is something our members have asked us for.

"Our next area of focus will be South Australia, where we will be rallying industry to participate in the process of endorsing Holmesglen Institute to extend their training to the state."

Tasmania board representative at PIAA, Peter Clark says, "This is fantastic news for the printing industry in Tasmania. We were at real risk of losing access to a vital training programme and I am thrilled that PIAA was able to orchestrate the successful outcome for industry".

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