Mansfield business supports young learners online as it marks 15-year anniversary during pandemic

Skills Forward is celebrating its 15th anniversary.

Since 2005, Skills Forward has been pioneering new ways of working for the education and skills sector, enabling the digital delivery of skills assessments for colleges, training providers and organisations, and supporting the sector through periods of great change.

While the long-term implications of Covid-19 on the sector and the wider economy are as yet unclear, Skills Forward is supporting education providers in the short term with its eLearning solutions.

Apprentices have also been able to continue their training remotely, using software such as Skills Portfolio, an e-portfolio application to support and evidence online delivery.

Dan Howard, managing director at Skills Forward, said: “We have always aimed to respond to the needs of the sector and stay ahead of the curve, diversifying our offer wherever necessary as part of our commitment to our core purpose to promote and advance learning.

“We are all collectively facing the new challenge of coronavirus and now is the time to pull together and support each other as a sector and ensure the futures of the learners who will be impacted.

“Where we can use our expertise as an eLearning provider to help learners stay on track and providers to stay afloat, we’re more than happy to do so.”

Launched in 2005 as For Skills, the company has grown and now employs more than 30 people at its offices in Mansfield.

Dan Howard added: “In everything that we do at Skills Forward, our learners come first. We are driven by the individual successes of the people who use our learning platforms and access our curriculum and feel incredibly privileged that we get to play a part, however small, in shaping a person’s future.

“Ensuring that apprentices can continue to receive teaching means that we are supporting training providers to access their funding to remain operative. Training providers are a vital part of the skills system and will be integral, alongside apprentices, as we rebuild our economy.”