jivah

Hi Freedo,

Thats what I signed up to, althought I think you meant 17th edition rather than 16th, but after doing the 2 day foundation I realised that I should do the inspection and test as well. I think it is important to stress, what these courses do is give you the basics along with some pretty intensive cramming to get you through the tests. They probably all follow a similar way of doing things, I was just very impressed at the pace at which things are done, considering the broad range of abilities.

The thing is that when you come out of one of these courses, you are not really an electrician. Its a big step in that direction but what you really need is experience to go with the bits of paper.

Personally I would like to see a lot more emphasis on the testing, I think you learn more from problem solving and working it out for yourself than you do from reading a book. What I have done is to get round this is to buy myself some test gear and I have volunteered to check all my friends electrical systems, free of charge. They don't get any paperwork, but it gives me something to test myself on.

As for value for money, I look at it from an IT perspective, if I was to go on a course to learn some programming skills I would expect to pay about 200 to 300 a day to be taught in a group. Trade skills are coming in at about 125 a day so to me that seems pretty good.

I should point out that I can't compare it to other courses because this is the only one I have been on, you may well find that there are many others out there who went some where else who were just as pleased with what they learned, I can only tell you about this place, so have a good look around and just go with the place you feel comfortable with.

Hope that helps.

Cheers