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NMIT > Business & Industry > Workplace Training > Tasman District Council

With 22 years on-the-job experience as a Personal Assistant, Valerie Gribble decided to formalise her skills by completing the National Certificate in Business and Office Administration, Level 4 through NMIT.

“I had no qualifications at all. I wanted to do this for my own personal satisfaction and to acknowledge the skills I already had,” she says.

With support from her managers at Tasman District Council – Corporate Services Manager David Ward and Engineering Services Manager Peter Thomson, Valerie was able to complete the qualification through workplace assessment.

Qualifications can be gained in nzqa unit standards through workplace assessment. The idea behind this form of assessment is that people should be judged on whether they can do a particular task in the workplace, and that, if they can, they should be given formal credit for this.

Business tutors at NMIT are qualified to offer workplace assessment. Once a student decides they want to be assessed, the student is supplied with a list of criteria for that unit standard and an appointment made for the assessment. Evidence that the student has met the criteria can come from a range of different ways including: samples of work, attestation by a manager, verbal questions or sitting a test.

Valerie also attended classes part time for one semester, studying Recruiting and Selecting Staff and Providing pa to Management.

Valerie says juggling the demands of work with studying and family was at times “hugely challenging”, but also very rewarding.

“I had great support from both David and Peter.

“I loved the course, although it was a lot of hard work and I really enjoyed being in a classroom situation again,” she says.

The one year programme which can be studied full or part time covers all aspects of pa and administration work from organising meetings and taking minutes to travel bookings, staff recruitment and word processing and spreadsheet skills.