Driving the technological revolution of apprenticeships

Leading end-point assessment organisation, Vocational Training Charitable Trust (VTCT), has announced a key delivery partnership with Smart Apprentices to provide learners, training providers and employers a market-leading end-point assessment experience.

The partnership enables VTCT to rollout Smart Apprentices’ SEPA (Smart End Point Assessment) platform as part of its apprenticeship delivery from 2018 onwards. The software handles all of the mandatory administration tasks that are required as part of the end-point assessment across 20 apprenticeship programmes, supporting around 10,000 apprentices.

The platform, due to launch on 2^nd April, will allow VTCT’s providers to make significant time savings, as well as implementing standardisation and best practice across all VTCT assessments.

The SEPA platform incorporates all elements of the end-point assessment in one place, from recording EPAs, managing resources, validating competencies and conflicts of interest through to standardisation and compliance for external quality assurance.

New Apprenticeship Standards introduced by the Government place a greater emphasis on the end-point assessment, and potentially, a larger burden on assessors themselves. The SEPA rollout will help to mitigate these effects, and ensure learners receive the best possible service from their providers.

Ashley Barnes, Chief Academic Officer at VTCT, commented:

“It was clear during our due diligence process that the SEPA platform developed by Smart Apprentices provides a comprehensive and transparent solution to end-point assessment delivery.

“Across all of our operations, we want to put the user experience at the heart of everything we do, and market-leading technological solutions such as the SEPA platform allows us to do just that.”

Fiona Hudson-Kelly, CEO at Smart Apprentice, said:

“Having supported VTCT’s apprentices for many years with our flagship award winning e-portfolio technology, we are delighted to have the opportunity to partner with VTCT through SEPA, our Smart End Point Assessment technology platform. We’re dedicated to continuing a client centric experience for VTCT, their training providers, and apprentices throughout the end point assessment journey.”