AusLeisure

Skills Active and the New Zealand Outdoor Instructors Association (NZOIA) have teamed up to develop a pool of highly-skilled mountain bike assessors.

These expert mountain bike instructors came together last week to be put through their paces and peer assessed against the New Zealand Certificate in Outdoor Senior Leadership (Level 6) Mountain Bike strand.

They are now starting the assessor process with both Skills Active and NZOIA, and will be assessing trainees who complete the soon-to-be-launched Mountain Bike strand of the Outdoor Leadership Certificate (Level 4 Instructor, Level 5 Guide, Level 5 Instructor, and Level 6 Instructor).

This assessment was jointly facilitated by NZOIA and Skills Active, with technical advice and guidance from the New Zealand Professional Mountain Bike Association (NZPMBA).

The alignment of the NZ Certificate Outdoor Leadership qualifications and the NZOIA awards is highly anticipated by our industries. It will extend the pathways for outdoor recreation people to step up through the ranks and progress their careers.

The suite will eventually have a number of strands, and Mountain Bike is the first off the rank, to be followed shortly afterwards by Cave.

Skills Active Chief Executive Grant Davidson explains “we have worked closely with NZOIA and other key stakeholders as we developed this qualification, and again are working together to prepare a highly professional and expert group of assessors for our mountain bike trainees.

“Our joint goal is to build a strong sense of shared understanding between the two organisations, which will deliver quality assessment outcomes.”

NZOIA Operations Manager Penny Holland said all reports indicated the workshop had been a highly successful event, stating “NZOIA is excited to be delivering the new Mountain Biking qualifications and is looking forward to working with Skills Active to provide future roll-outs to industry.”

Mountain bike instructor and guide Ashley Burgess is one of the new assessors and also attended the workshops in her capacity as an NZPMBA committee member.

She says the workshop was an amazing opportunity for a group of industry professionals to join forces, share ideas and collaborate, ensuring the new assessors and qualifications will be able to meet the needs of a huge variety of learners.

Burgess sees that for NZPMBA, the new qualifications mark one of the first major steps towards mountain biking being recognised as a profession, adding “having a standard means that people know what to expect when they are working with providers.

“And on a personal level, I’m just so excited about people in New Zealand having a qualification that is useful and practical and robust.”

Image: Nelson Silvan Forest Mountain Bike park. Courtesy of Grant Stirling.

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