LRDG’S LATEST STANDING OFFER: A NEW ERA IN GOVERNMENT LANGUAGE TRAINING

LRDG was awarded the first of its kind government-wide standing offer for online language training. This is great news, right? But what does it mean and why is it important? Jeremy Frohlich, Business Development Director at LRDG, explains the impact of the standing offer for the Government as a whole.

This summer, LRDG was awarded the first of its kind government-wide standing offer for ONLINE language training. Although we’ve been awarded numerous RFPs (Requests for Proposals), major sole-source contracts, and even standing offers with some ministries directly, it’s actually the first time in our 19-year history that we’re awarded a government-wide standing offer. That’s because of the important word in caps and bold above. LRDG’s training delivery has been remote/virtual/online since day 1, way before Covid forced everything online.

What is a standing offer?

In a nutshell, a standing offer is a list of pre-approved vendors that government departments can choose from to fulfill their needs. There are standing offers for everything from office chairs to military equipment. Once on the list, government departments can call-up services, without needing to negotiate or justify doing business with that supplier. Now getting on that list is a different story. It’s a major milestone that we’ve been working towards for 19 years. It was over 100 pages of checks and balances, mandatory criteria, point-rated criteria, financial justifications, security and compliance protocols, ACCESSIBILITY (more on this in another post) and more. It was years of being excluded from traditional standing offers, and by consequence being told by numerous departments over the years, that were trying to procure our services, that they were not allowed to buy LRDG.

Until 2021, there’s never been a mechanism to procure ONLINE language training, as it wasn’t what the government was used to. All language training was understood to be done in classrooms, sometimes in larger groups, with a TEACHER. This means limited opportunity to actually speak the language, and certainly less of a focus on each individual participant. If you’re surprised to read this in 2021, imagine what it was like for LRDG developing an online curriculum in 2002. That’s where it all started. Rather than spending hours in a classroom with a teacher going through the linguistic notions, LRDG built an online curriculum, to act as the teacher.

All the theory, grammar, vocabulary needed, was now available 24/7 from a computer. LRDG’s TUTOR is now more of a coach, making sure the learner is progressing, and most importantly, putting into practice the material they’ve studied. It’s a simple but extremely powerful model that is proven to be more flexible, personalized, and even cost-effective. Learners are getting 1 on 1 attention, never falling behind, and of course, spending less time with a real person which means less labour costs. When you add this altogether, learners are more likely to achieve their objectives (pass their tests) the first time around, and LRDG has a 91% success rate, well above the industry average.

All in all, LRDG’s delivery model has allowed LRDG to build longstanding relationships with language coordinators, and is used across over a dozen major departments nationwide. This has been the case for over 18 years, well before any standing offer, but we couldn’t be more proud and honoured to be awarded our new standing offer, and continue working with the federal government.