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Echelon Publishing plans to strike a blow against ageism with pilot consultancy scheme for RTPI

By Debbie Carter (16-11-2006)
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Learning and Development News - Echelon Publishing plans to strike a blow against ageism with pilot consultancy scheme for RTPI

A scheme to use the knowledge and expertise of retired town planners is ‘a strike against ageism’, says Echelon Publishing.

The e-learning provider is piloting the scheme for the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), and has set up a national network of retired planning professionals to market the RTPI’s performance and learning support website to planning departments and consultancies.

And it says the ‘very interesting project’ has been so successful that it is considering setting up similar groups of consultants for other professional bodies.

‘We will be actively seeking the newly retired in future peer-to-peer consulting,’ said Echelon Publishing managing director, David Hill.

‘In our own way, we’re making a strike against ageism. It’s absurd to lose the skills and experience of retired people when many may want to continue to contribute to their profession.’

Hill told TJ that Echelon Publishing had got involved with the project for two reasons: it wanted to ensure that the people who were selling to RTPI members had specialist knowledge and were ‘talking the same language’ as customers, and it wanted to establish a nationwide network of consultants.

The retired planners already had the necessary technical knowledge and social networks, and Echelon provided them with the consulting skills.

‘A lot of those guys have come out of local authorities,’ said Hill. ‘People get retired from local authorities quite early. They’re retired and sitting on a very nice pension, but feeling very active still.

‘The project has proved to be hugely successful. It’s all about providing CPD to members of a profession, so they can access it during work time; they can go onto a website and download whatever information they need at the time. People want to use just-in-time learning rather than just-in-case training.’

The RTPI website (www.planningmatters.co.uk) comprises bespoke planning modules, a library of generic management skills material, a portfolio of useful web links and related articles and journals.

It also features a legal commentary blog, interactive self-assessments and a personal electronic learning log.

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