There's loads of different threads regarding Tradeskills4U, but I thought I'd throw my two pennies worth on here.
Having worked as an installation engineer for about 20 years I wanted to formalise my experience into real qualifications and concentrate on sparky work. I did a lot of research on which qualifications i needed to satisfy the likes of NICEIC etc and shopped about for a course.
Now, there are plenty of people out there who believe that they can do one of these quick courses and start wiring and fault finding. Obviously this isn't the case, but there's nothing preventing anybody, by law, from doing non-notifiable work. I'm pretty certain, from the things i've seen over the years, that there are people operating exactly like that, often doing notifiable work, and just not knowing the law let alone how do safe work. I don't know how on earth anyone expects to be able to control that goings-on, Jo Public has been kept well and truly in the dark about Part P, Notifiable etc, so they don't know what to look for. Maybe the new ESR will have some publicity like the Corgi/GasSafe scheme? But regardless of all that, anyone who attends a course and passes a recognised exam is safer than Mr Avago.
There's no substitute for experience, but the courses at Tradeskills4U are run by experienced and knowledgeable tutors with a wealth of experience in the trade, and nobody ever suggested, whilst i was there, that you could walk out of there and go it alone from day one. Sparky's with NVQ's and apprenticeships under their belt have every reason to feel that these courses offer the inexperienced the opportunity to give sparky's a bad name and undercut them. I was looking around the room myself and thinking "god help us!" about a few of the candidates after some of the questions they asked. But here's the thing, that candidate now knows the answer. They didn't have to come on this course, and until the law is changed or tightened up at least, these courses are probably saving lives. These courses also taught some of the candidates a very important lesson: They have a lot to learn!
Tradeskills4U is a professional outfit, and I was very impressed with the quality and knowledge of the tutors there. The short courses don't offer the practical skills needed to get on with it, and they can't really give much in the way of historic standards and practices that you need in the real world but, they taught me a thing or two and after 20years as an engineer, that came as a surprise.
) because of my work experience and previous qualifications. The college tutors operated an open workshop policy so allowed me and others unlimited time in the workshop to get to grips with stuff like conduit bending, MI, testing and fault finding so would definitely recommend the college route above any fast track routes available regardless of how professional the business may be.
