The project was at its core designed to address the issue of professionalisation or competence of adult education professionals entering the work environment and implementing training programmes for employees. Project partners set ourselves the goal of preparing an innovative training model for trainers, which incorporates new and current approaches derived from an overview of the different practices in individual partner countries. Our aim was to develop new procedures and didactic steps that would allow trainers to learn about specific issues in the field of education in the work environment more easily and in a more structured manner. Experience shows that many adult education principles in the work environment are in need of major adjustments to account for the intertwining of the many different factors, needs and obstacles in the work situation.
The Profi-Train Self-Study Manual provides an answer to the question of what do trainers, teachers, coaches, counsellors, project managers and other key persons want and need to understand, know and learn when it comes to providing work-based basic skills training in the work environment. The Manual covers the planning, execution and evaluation of the whole process. It urges one to “leave the traditional educational classrooms” and to use and organise learning settings in the work environment.
The guide entitled Competent to Train Work-Based Basic Skills – WBBS deals with training of the trainers. It presents a more detailed methodological, subject-matter and didactic view of the structure of the training programme for greater professionalisation of work in this field. It is translated into the languages of the partner countries, and at the same time it is also properly contextualised and adjusted to the specifics of training in work environments in individual countries.
Companies are different so different approaches need to be used and tailor-made if we want to be successful.
The European Roadmap – Guidelines for Stakeholders is aimed at everyone who can facilitate more sustainable implementation of workplace basic skills training and professionalisation of adult educators. The Profi-Train European Roadmap is addressed to stakeholders on a broad level, since the subject – professionalisation of adult educators for work-based basic skills – is a fairly new and as yet not well established field, i.e.: designers of workplace basic skills programmes, employers and their associations, trade unions, continuing education and training institutions, basic skills professionals, as well as their umbrella organisations, networks and bodies, workplace basic skills funding authorities, political decision makers (local, regional, national and European level).
SIAE was invited to participate in the project thanks to its experience in the training of trainers. We, however, saw the proposed project as an opportunity to exchange and acquire new knowledge from the experts who have much more know-how in this field. Above all, we wanted to integrate the rich tradition of work-based basic skills training with the project for developing basic and vocational competences of employees. This was because the Profi-Train professionalisation concept is designed so as to allow adult education professionals to develop and carry out the training programmes in work environments in a way that benefits the company and the employees, generates added value and enables employees to participate in lifelong learning.
Estera Možina, MSc (estera.mozina@acs.si), SIAE
