A Highlands and Islands website dedicated towards encouraging business success through skills and training is to offer the ability to purchase online courses for the first time, it was announced today.

While LearningWorks has always acted as a portal for businesses and individuals accessing training, the website has now linked with three online training providers to provide web-based courses. The Highlands and Islands Enterprise website has joined forces with MangoLearn, MyCourse and the UHI Millennium Institute, enabling people to complete the course of their choice through LearningWorks.

Business management, customer service, bookkeeping, IT and rural development courses are among those that are now on offer from the LearningWorks e-learning pages

To celebrate the launch of the new facility, the first 200 businesses or individuals from the Highlands and Islands who sign up to online MangoLearn courses available from LearningWorks will also receive 60 per cent discount on the cost.

Through LearningWorks, the MangoLearn courses are also able to offer e-mail, telephone and drop-in support as a result of a partnership with four learning centres – Skye and Lochalsh, Orkney College, Shetland College and SOS Training (Grantown on Spey).

HIE’s Jacqueline McGuigan said: “I am delighted to launch this new facility on the LearningWorks site today. “More and more businesses are becoming aware of the need to invest in new skills if they are to achieve success, and LearningWorks is committed to make accessing training, including online courses, as easy as possible.

“HIE has developed LearningWorks as a central, single access point with information on courses, the latest news on skills development and helping providing solutions, and we see offering web-based courses as a natural extension of that service.

 “We will continually develop LearningWorks to ensure that it delivers an increasing range of skills courses which will benefit companies across the Highlands and Islands region.”