BCITO Director Jason Hungerford

One of the first industry training organisations to join Te Pūkenga work based learning, BCITO, says learners have embraced its online learning management system which helps build the relationship between the apprentice and the training advisor and adds value to the workplace visits as Training Advisors know what an apprentice has covered between visits.

BCITO Director Jason Hungerford says myBCITO has been extremely well received by learners and employers since its launch in 2020 and continues to go from strength to strength. Currently, it has an average weekly page view surpassing one million and apprentice submissions (of photos or videos of their work) is over 3,800 per week. During the past month alone, more than 13,000 apprentices used myBCITO to support their learning on site and more than 3.6 million pages views were made by apprentices and their employers.

“Originally myBCITO was a tool aimed at high school students studying Building Construction and Allied Trades (BCATS) and their teachers and it became apparent that myBCITO could also transform how we interact with apprentices and their employers in a digital environment which was a necessity when COVID-19 came along,” says Jason.

“Pre-pandemic, BCITO’s training advisors would interact with apprentices and employers mostly face-to-face during worksites visits, with lengthy travel often necessary.  We needed a way to interact with apprentices between visits that also captured apprentices’ practical work more frequently and consistently.  We also needed to be able to view evidence of apprentices’ learning that showed progress as well as a streamlined way to record this evidence in a digital environment.”

myBCITO has a desktop version and is also an app that can be installed on Android and iOS smartphones.  Apprentices can upload photographs and videos of what they’re learning onsite along with descriptions of what techniques they used, get feedback from their BCITO Training Advisor and view their progress through their qualification at any time of the day or night. 

They can also access training resources that were previously print-only and take quizzes to help embed their knowledge.  Importantly, they can interact with their Training Advisor whenever they like and get a timely response instead of waiting for a 3-monthly site visit. At a quick glance, BCITO Training Advisors can see all apprentices assigned to them on one dashboard, how far each person is through their qualification and how many engagements they’ve had in the past 30 days. 

“Prior to myBCITO there was no opportunity for apprentices to engage with BCITO in a digital space and no scope for BCITO to demonstrate quality customer care via digital channels.  Now with myBCITO, we’ve been able to adapt our service model to drive a customised experience which suits each apprentice as an individual.

“Work-based learning is not like being in a classroom where learners work through a sequence of competencies, each day brings with it a unique training environment for each apprentice depending on the work the employer has on the go at the time. myBCITO allows apprentices to record any new knowledge gained for any topic at any time that suits them.”

Learners aren’t the only ones to benefit, says Jason. “Employers can view their apprentices’ progress within myBCITO and we have recently released new functionality to enable employers to comment on their apprentices’ evidence.  This enhancement was made in response to employers asking to be able to add comments and set goals for their apprentices through myBCITO.”

Jason says myBCITO is but one initiative behind the recently reported high enrolment numbers for apprenticeships in the industry.  “RoVE is about the reform of the overall system of vocational education in Aotearoa and BCITO continues to play an active part in the design of how vocational education is delivered in the future.   BCITO has a number of initiatives underway that seek to provide better outcomes for learners and employers, in alignment with the future direction of Te Pūkenga.”

More details on tools and resources are available on the BCITO website.