Organisations Announce Strategic Merger

Industry Training Organisations Announce Strategic Merger

PrintNZ Training and the New Zealand Journalists Industry Training Organisation will merge this year, creating a united industry training body to fully reflect the needs of the media and communications industries.

The amalgamation creates a wide-ranging Industry Training Organisation (ITO) which will be tasked with enhancing and developing workplace-based education for the journalism, printing and packaging fields.

NZJTO board chairman, Lincoln Gould, says the merger of the two ITOs is a positive step towards expanding the depth and breadth of journalism training.

“The JTO has concentrated in the past on the development of unit standards and the moderation of the post graduate qualification in journalism taught at a number of polytechnics and universities. The merger will allow the extension of training into structured workplace training – an area where PrintNZ Training has considerable experience and strength of resource,” says Mr Gould.

“The new ITO, to be established by 30 June 2008, will be renamed ‘The Communications and Media ITO’ and will allow for specific industry sector representation and governance.

PrintNZ board chairman, Graham Fear, says the structure of the new ITO will ensure the individual needs of journalism, printing and packaging are recognised and adequately addressed.

“The strength of this merger is that while our industries will be able to unite and share common ground, each will also retain the identity of the sector it represents,” he says. “The Communications and Media ITO will offer a broad umbrella under which to operate, while a second tier of Sector Committees will ensure the unique voice of each industry is represented and developed to its fullest capabilities.”

The Communications and Media ITO Board will consist of eight members, comprising a representative of the print, journalism and packaging industries, plus two EPMU members. Three other members will be co-opted from other Sector Committees.

The new ITO will be led by Joan Grace, the current chief executive officer of PrintNZ Training, with JTO executive director Mike Fletcher continuing to deal with specific journalism issues.

“This merger provides tangible recognition of the positive connections that can be made to enhance our changing industries,” she says. “We are pleased, too, that the ITO infrastructure we have invested in can be used as a blueprint for other sectors.”

ENDS

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