Looking forward (and back a bit)
Our decision at the outset of the Covid pandemic to invest in developing remote, online delivery of our onshore training courses has certainly paid dividends.
It has enabled us to support an ever-increasing number of seafood businesses and workers with their training and skills needs.
This year we achieved our 500th learner in March, our 1,000th learner in October and by the end of the year we will have passed 1,100 learners. That’s just our awards; the numbers taking advantage of our free online practice tests have rocketed. More than 7,200 unsupervised online practice exams have been passed in 2021. Many of these will be for learners who didn’t need formally recognised qualification, but simply a record of their study.
Principles of Fish Quality Assessment has been our most popular taught course in each of the last two years. During 2021 we added some great new remote programmes to our portfolio:
- Bivalve Shellfish Hygiene Verification – which has been delivered to Environmental Health Officers across all four nations.
- Food Authenticity and Integrity Verification – probably the most complex programme we have on offer at the moment.
- Principles of Fish Smoking – which has seen rapid take-up since we launched it in October.
Looking ahead, we hope that 2022 will bring:
- Sustained growth in take-up of our onshore training courses and use of our online learning materials (supporting our 2,000th learner).
- Further enhancements to courses being delivered remotely and the addition of new offerings that are only practicable by remote delivery (e.g., webinars and coaching sessions).
- Continued growth in engagement and impact of the various national/regional Seafood Training Networks of which Seafish is a partner.
- Access to substantial funding for seafood businesses through the UK Seafood Fund to help them meet their training and skills needs.
There’s no doubt that remote online delivery is here to stay, regardless of what happens with Covid. We hope to see a return to more face-to-face training soon, but the convenience, quality and frequency of remote online delivery means it is here to stay.
If you would like to register your interest in any of our onshore training courses, please email our Onshore Training Team: onshore@seafish.co.uk.
Thank you for reading. I wish you all a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Stay safe.