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| London College of Beauty Therapy Selects Blackboard Blackboard announces that the London College of Beauty Therapy (LCBT) has selected Blackboard to deliver its unique BTEC Beauty Retail Consultant Diploma online to reduce barriers for learners who might not otherwise have the time or opportunity for professional training. Working with key retailers and employers, the LCBT – the only college in the U.K. dedicated to the beauty industry – has developed a unique 16-week BTEC Beauty Retail Consultant Diploma that can be delivered online using the Blackboard Learn flexible learning platform. With the delivery of the course, the LCBT has helped to meet the needs of companies who can train consultants without interrupting their current work and employees who can enhance their skills while maintaining employment. "For employers there are three main barriers to staff training which are still too imposing for the vast majority of companies to surmount: time, cost and opportunity", said Eileen Cavalier, CEO of the LCBT. "The beauty industry needs to find ways to overcome these impediments because it is undoubtedly nullifying commercial growth within the sector, and stifling the financial performance of beauty salons that depend heavily on highly trained and committed staff to deliver increasingly complex and technologically advanced treatments." "One of the resolutions to this problem involves adopting a dynamic online learning solution which is exactly what we have achieved with Blackboard", Cavalier continued. "We have embraced the opportunities offered by 21st century training methods which literally take training into the workplace, immediately removing two of the traditional obstacles, the time and opportunity arguments." LCBT's BTEC students can study the 16-week diploma fully online through the Blackboard platform, which enables them to submit assignments, receive tutor feedback online and interact virtually with their tutors and peers through forums and blogs. In the process, students remain truly motivated and are achieving better results through the greater engagement they have with the course. "The BTEC in Retail Beauty Consultancy qualification is one of the most important beauty consultant training initiatives in the U.K.", said Mat Tinker, LCBT's E-Learning Developer, "and now with the online delivery the qualification has the inbuilt flexibility to be tailored to meet individual company needs. Learning is a 24-7 culture driven by today's external pressures and demands on students, and this course acts as evidence that traditional learning environments are no longer considered to be the only way to obtain new skills." While it is difficult for a city center college to physically expand in order to accommodate more students, the Blackboard platform has given LCBT the facility to do this virtually. The BTEC diploma has successfully trained beauty consultants online across the U.K., and the next stage will be to do this globally. Eventually the college plans to make all of its courses available through Blackboard Learn, to better support the college's 1,500 beauty retail and therapy students. write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Computing News :: home page |