Skillsarena is a revolutionary and innovative piece of software offering educational bodies and institutions the opportunity to teach and test software and keyboard skills. 

Boasting the latest, state-of-the-art technology, with built in Flash and Macromedia programmes, the software promises to deliver the ultimate in speed and performance.

The on-line competency-testing programme launched four months ago and following the much publicised government initiative, "The National Grid for Learning", promoting the Internet culture across a variety of demographics, looks set to take the education sector by storm as an effective TNA tool. The ability to review a person's history of tests taken allows for a great insight into their skills progression and development. A crucial requirement for today's training culture.

James Coe, Sales Director skillsarena, comments:

"Users are able to test their skills against a range of competencies, MS Office, Aptitude assessments and keyboard use, without having to pay the high premiums charged by other companies offering similar packages."

The drive to increase the knowledge and use of IT throughout libraries, youth clubs and educational establishments will prove to be a costly project: to ease the industry into the initiative the government has allocated a budget of £2 billion. The installation and integration of PC's into schools and colleges has since taken off confidently. Coe comments, 

"Industry interest has been phenomenal, however, we have to 
ensure that anyone who is learning about computers, and their use, knows where they are starting from and can use the assessments to track their learning process. This makes certain that the training budget is being fully maximised by correctly matching the courses with students in terms of ability and learning criteria."

The design and development of the skillsarena software simulates an every day, working environment: students are able to gear themselves for real life assessments, using the skillsarena certificate as a truly validated means of verifying their PC literacy. 

Market research and product testing has remained high on the check list of the management team prior to, and post launch of the fully interactive on-line skills assessment web site.

James explains, "The first twelve months of the company's existence was spent researching the market. We saw that the testing requirements of various sectors had changed from even a couple of years ago.

Even after only four months skillsarena has already progressed considerably since the announcement of its launch in April. The development team based at the head offices in St Albans are preparing to introduce innovative new programmes in direct response to market demand, research and intensive piloting.

"Skillsarena aims to support the government's initiative as much as possible. We have tested the market in order to develop further programmes and software. A surprise for us was the need for basic skills to be assessed. This aimed at the 3R's: looking at numeracy, spelling and grammar."

For more information visit www.skillsarena.com