The Victorian government has committed a $4 million funding to support the Victorian Transport Association’s (VTA) new model for training and licensing heavy vehicle drivers – a move a Gallagher leader said is an industry win in Victoria.
“Over the past few years the Victorian Transport Association has mobilised member support to trial a new heavy-vehicle training and licensing model and now has won a commitment from the state government of $4 million over four years to educate 800 new drivers,” said Roz Shaw, Gallagher national head of transport.
The eight-day mandatory entry-level training (MELT) program, adapted from a successful Canadian model, focuses on developing 140 key competencies in a real-life situation.
Gallagher said more than 70 trainees were placed with member businesses, where they maintained spotless incident records in the more than two and half years they were on the job, convincing the government that the program was a better alternative to the existing five-hour training licensing model.
“The VTA got government endorsement because it proved that its training program worked in terms of in the safety performance of trained truck drivers and job retention, that the way that they do this actually does get results,” Shaw said. “The biggest factor in the success of this program was the fact they worked with industry operators. If they didn’t initiate the program it could never have gone ahead, and they needed the support of operators because the industry itself doesn’t have the resources to train drivers. Career training for the heavy vehicle sector has to be a collaboration between association providers and their member operators. Transport companies have to be involved to make it work.”
Shaw urged other states to adopt the training program model, with the goal of empowering freight operations to be in control of a certified process that can be encouraged in schools as a potential career path.
“Each association in each state could take the Victorian model and implement it in conjunction with training providers and member operators, and the Australian Transport Association should lobby the government to have the program recognised. It should be a nationally accredited training model,” Shaw said.
