Solomon Group PTE successes

The Solomon Group is a training provider which has excelled in the provision of literacy and numeracy training.

Based in Manurewa, Auckland, the Solomon Group was awarded Best Small Business at the 2005 Māori Business Awards.

The family-run business has been registered and accredited as a Private Training Establishment with NZQA since 1998.

Managing Director Frank Solomon has an extensive background in teaching at all levels. Previously, he was a secondary school principal for ten years. He resigned to carry out contracts for the Ministry of Education and Auckland University of Technology, which eventually led to the creation of the Solomon Group.

His wife, Judy Solomon, is the group's Director Curriculum, her experience being in literacy development and English for speakers of other languages. Daughter Jenny Solomon is Director Operations. For four years previously, she managed the Westpac Registered Training Organisation in Australia, which created national qualifications for a targeted audience within the bank.

The Solomon Group got started when Frank was asked by the New Zealand Employment Service to help some clients with literacy. "I said we could do that, so we applied for a contract and provided a 12-week course at Papakura. Then they asked us to do the same in Pukekohe," says Frank.

Since then the Solomon Group has gone from strength to strength.

The Solomon Group now offers over half a dozen courses. "We help with the Learning for Living foundation project. We run a Tertiary Education Commission course called Pathways, which aims to assist people with basic literacy and numeracy. We also provide a bridging course, which takes students on to the foundation course. We've got an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) course and an alternative education class for kids under the age of 16 who have been out of school for more than two terms. We also run night classes to help people upskill their literacy and prepare them to go on to work," says Frank.

The Solomon Group is committed to empowering people to improve their quality of life through literacy. It was this attitude that led them to win the Small Business of the Year Award at the 2005 Māori Business Awards.

The Māori Business Awards are run by the Maori Women's Development Inc (MWDI), which is a small-business investment fund managed by a group of former and current national presidents of the Māori Women's Welfare League.

Frank says that when they first knew about the awards they weren’t really interested in entering. "A couple of people were adamant that we should put our name forward, so we did, the day before it closed. We didn’t hear for a while and thought, 'Oh well, that's the end of it'. Then we got a phone call from the regional officer of the Māori Women's Welfare League, who asked if we wanted to go to Ngaruawahia to the function. We decided to go and that afternoon we got a call from MWDI Director Dame Georgina Kirby saying we had been chosen as finalists. When we were named Best Small Business of the Year we were blown away."

Frank says that winning this award has given him and his staff a huge boost.

"Put it this way; we just do our job and it's your staff that say 'Well, maybe you’re doing a good job' and then, when you actually win like that, it just blows you away. We just do our work, we think 'Try and do the best we can,' we all do. When you get recognised by others for being pretty good - you get really proud."