It’s been a bit of a year of change at NECA Education & Careers. In June I took over as Chief Executive Officer from Phil Green who retired after over eight years at the helm. Phil has successfully navigated the organisation through some turbulent times, including the lockdowns triggered by COVID, to leave the organisation in a state of health for which any new CEO would be enviable. Our people are aligned and engaged, feedback from students and employers is positive, stakeholders are supportive, and the business is sound and growing. Phil and his executive team should feel very proud of the business that’s been created here at NECA Education & Careers.

Some highlights for this year past have included:

• We have commenced work on a new second major campus in Dandenong which should open for students in the first half of next year.
• Partnering with Energy Safe Victoria, we successfully launched the delivery of a new continuing professional development course, Electrician’s Licence Course – Skills Maintenance, a mandatory course for all holders of a Victorian Electrician’s Licence. This is being delivered at our home campus in North Carlton plus our satellite campuses in Ballarat and Richmond.
• We secured funding for a ground-breaking Meta Electrical Project. Using the latest in digital twin technologies, this funding will enable us to provide an innovative training approach, at scale across Victoria, that will support the sector’s shortfalls in providing the scope of skills and experience required by an apprentice.
• We successfully transitioned to the new training package for Certificate III in Electrotechnology, leading the State in doing so and ensuring that our apprentices weren’t held back from up-to-date training and development.
• Our Women and Their Trade (WaTT) initiative continued to move from strength to strength. This initiative has helped us to achieve really pleasing results with increasing female participation in our group training business:
  • As of June 2021 8.4% of apprentices we employed were female, by June 2022 this percentage has increased to 16.8%
  • Since September 2021 43% of new apprentices we employed were female
  • Compared with the whole of Victoria, where just 3.5% of electrical apprentices are female, ours stand at 10.3%

We are super excited about the year ahead with the opening of a brand new campus plus the launch of a couple of new initiatives that should delight our stakeholders.