India: Accelerate personal development through training of trainers

Lifelong learning is now a reality, not just for students and apprentices but also for trainers. Only if you keep learning, you will never forget what it is like to be a learner. With its wide range of training programmes and its strong emphasis on employability, "Training – Made in Germany" has the potential to successfully contribute to the training of trainers through transnational cooperation projects. Read an article on this topic by iMOVE, which was published on the Indian platform "National Skills Network".

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The Training of Trainers (ToT) is a high-level professional capacity-building process for qualified instructors, facilitators and supervisors. In order to create a real and inspiring impact on the learning processes and experiences of young people, trainers need to undergo comprehensive training interventions themselves. These should be designed to develop or refresh the instructor’s ability to run exciting and effective programmes.

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Make an inspiring impact

This process is usually aimed at familiarising the trainer with the specifics of new or revised contents. These often relate to the general characteristics of the profession and provide answers to questions regarding the required abilities and competences of the instructor, how to manage a group and its processes, how to perform an exercise, and how to design a course. However, personal qualities, characteristics and skills play an equally important role. Ideally, the participants gain insight into their own approaches and an understanding of how to kindle the creative spark in others on a personal level.

Tailor-made ToT enables trainers to help apprentices and trainees move through different learning stages – to know, to understand and to do – and also to adapt their programme design to different learning styles of their participants. It is also important to provide a safe learning environment and be in contact with all participants, their learning goals and concerns. Thus, they can help people accelerate their personal development, become more successful and self-confident, as well as set and reach new goals in life.

Constant adaptation to specific needs

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Germany's economic success is reinforced by its expertise in vocational education and training (VET) and its dual training system.  One of the five main principles of this system is assuring that VET staff are specifically qualified to impart their knowledge through training. "Training – Made in Germany” offers the necessary know-how and quality in order to increase the added value for international partners. Germany has a long-standing tradition in this field and enjoys a high reputation for the demand-driven and practical orientation of its qualification programmes.

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Cooperation on ToT programmes is particularly successful since this German experience is adapted time and time again to the specific needs of each individual case. The integration of professional, social and methodological competencies is at the forefront of what German partners can provide for you.

Training periods in Germany and abroad

Many ToT programmes have already been successfully carried out by German training providers for their international partners. The German training provider bfz for example launched a three-year continuing education programme for Indian master craftsmen trainers. bfz was commissioned by the Indian Ministry of Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), responsible for vocational education and training, to provide continuing education in the fields of Welding and Mechatronics/CNC to 20 trainers from four educational institutions in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai. The aim of the initiative was to enable the master craftsmen trainers to work autonomously using modern training methods to develop curricula and update these on an ongoing basis. A further aim was to familiarise them with the fundamental principles of dual training in order to encourage the integration of companies into training programmes.

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The programme comprised training and field sessions in India and Germany. Whilst in Germany, the Indian participants also undertook scheduled visits to companies and bfz training centres in order to obtain direct insights into company-based training in Germany.

Following the stay in Germany, the German bfz trainers supported their Indian colleagues in deploying their newly acquired skills and in drawing up new curricula. In order to secure the sustainability of the training, bfz also set up a new online platform to facilitate ongoing communication between German and Indian trainers.

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In accordance with German standards

Another German training provider named Eckert Schools International has been training Vietnamese teaching staff for the Vietnamese industrial conglomerate Vingroup, which is aiming at conquering the domestic automobile market. Vingroup has set up a training center near their production site and wants their staff to be trained by domestic trainers.

These trainers completed a six-month programme focusing on Industrial Mechanics and Mechatronics. They spent the first three months of this course in Germany. The second half of the programme took place in Vietnam. Especially during the training units staged in Germany, the focus was on the development and planning of teaching sessions, on the methodology and didactics of the teaching process and on evaluation systems to judge the status of knowledge and the skills acquired by future trainees. The basic principles of health protection, health and safety at work and environmental protection were also imparted. The programme additionally included insights into practice.

Acquiring didactic competencies

The Essen Power Plant Academy (KWS) trained 38 experienced Turkish engineers from the Samsun Power Station in order to qualify as trainers. There were four course modules which primarily focused on the further development of important soft skills and didactic abilities. Aspects practised included communication and rhetoric, presentation and visualisation techniques, basic didactic and methodological principles and specific training preparation.

Further down the line, the participants already developed theoretical and practical instruction units. This culminated in a practical consideration of educational practice including the development and implementation of training objectives and a chance to network with other trainers.

iMOVE: Training – Made in Germany

iMOVE in the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training is the central network platform for the initiation of cooperation projects in the education and training industry. As the export initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), it provides access to German training providers for international stakeholders who value the successful German approach to training. Those seeking information are able to access services provided free of charge via the iMOVE website, which is available in a range of different languages. This includes access to the iMOVE provider database containing profiles and contact information of around 250 German training providers as well as the opportunity to post an individual request in the iMOVE B2B marketplace.

• Author:  Silvia Niediek, Regional Manager for South Asia at iMOVE