The Nissan apprentice of the year is….

This is the moment where 170 apprentices from Nissan dealerships have the opportunity to be awarded the accolade of ‘Apprentice of the Year 2006’ and this year the chosen few are – Darren Lee from Sunwin Motors in Nottingham as the 3rd year apprentice, Daniel Kirkland from Wessex garage Newport who is a 2nd year apprentice and Carrie Crombie a parts consultant from Reg Vardy in Aberdeen.

From the 170 apprentices 12 were selected to come to a Training centre based in Nottingham for a full day of testing, ranging from fault diagnostics to part recognition to measurement exercises. At the end of the day the results were added up and the awards were presented by Nissan’s Technical Support Manager Jon Hill.

Jon commented: "The Nissan Advanced Apprenticeship scheme has been running for a total of eight years now and each year it gives me great pleasure to award the young technicians, and parts consultants of tomorrow, their justified recognition for all their hard work that they have shown throughout the year."

He continued: "Without these types of schemes the standard of expertise in our industry would be seriously affected. Dealers have to commit a lot of time and expense to allow the apprentice to attend weekly courses throughout the year but the rewards are substantial. The knowledge gained by the apprentice in these environments is top class. Not only are they being taught by highly skilled Nissan training staff but also on the latest Nissan equipment and components."

The Nissan Advanced Apprenticeship programme is a training scheme fully supported by the Institute of the Motoring Industry (IMI) and the Government approved NVQ system. It is a 3 year course involving block training of between 6 to 8 weeks at a time, based at a centrally located technical centre.

Every one of the 12 finalists received a glass trophy to recognise their efforts but the finalists also get a selection of vouchers to be spent from the Shift-Excellence brochure which ranges from Red Letter days to corporate clothing.

Any budding apprentices interested in joining the scheme should go along and speak with their local Nissan dealer to see what is available to them or contact the Nissan Advanced Apprenticeship Programme on 0870 241 0673 or by logging on to nissan-apprenticeship.co.uk