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Contributions from
the Column
InWEnt News
Millennoum Project .”Private sector is a key partner”
MDGs: The need for PPP
Vocational Training: Making appropriate use of e-learning
“Ch@t of Worlds” – a tool for sustainable development
04/2005 |
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[ Vocational training ]
Making appropriate use of e-learning
In cooperation with the Egyptian government, an InWEnt project demonstrated how modern teaching methods should be combined with traditional forms of learning. Egypt plans to continue the successful programme involving more ministries as well as the private sector and introducing additional content.
[ By Martina Müller-Norouzi and Uwe Wieckenberg ]
E-learning's great potential lies in the teaching of theory. It is of limited use – or indeed no use at all – for teaching practical vocational skills. So, in the vocational training sector especially, it is important to combine modern teaching methods (e-learning) with conventional ones (face-to-face instruction). This “blended learning” is the only way to put across both theoretical and practical course content quickly and effectively. Those are the principal findings of an Egyptian-German vocational training pilot project that has just run its course.
According to official data, there are 3.8 million Internet users in Egypt. In contrast to other Arab states, vigorous government effort has helped the country to create a good basis for improving access to and increasing use of modern information and communication technologies. So far, however, the possibilities of modern information technology are not being sufficiently exploited.
Now that the vocational training project's pilot phase is over, the German and Egyptian partners are considering ways in which the role of e-learning can be strengthened in vocational training. To supplement the basic training that is currently provided, InWEnt plans to offer further training on specific subjects for a variety of target groups. This, in turn, will serve as knowledge base for a course conveying management expertise. Also proposed is a regular symposium on “E-Learning Management in Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Processes” to give all course participants an opportunity to compare notes, exchange views and build on what they have learnt.
“E-learning is not the overall solution for the problems of education and vocational training, but e-learning will definitely be a relevant instrument and medium for education and training in the knowledge society of the future.” That is how the opportunities the new medium presents were assessed by an InWEnt conference on “E-Learning Management in TVET Processes” in Cairo last summer.
But what new ways are there for imparting and exchanging knowledge? Building on years of cooperation with the Egyptian Industry and Education Ministry in the field of vocational training by GTZ (the German agency for technical cooperation), InWEnt has developed a demand-oriented programme. It combines modern e-learning with the conventional teaching and learning methods.
The opening event was followed up by a further training programme consisting of two face-to-face seminars and a six-week online course on the InWEnt e-learning platform Global Campus 21. Participants included 30 staff of various Egyptian ministries as well as of some private-sector companies.
Participants came to the programme with widely differing ideas about e-learning. On the one hand, there was excitement about the possibilities the new form of teaching and learning opened up (“You can replace anything with e-learning”). On the other, there was deep scepticism about its use in vocational training because personal interaction between trainer and trainee was seen as vital for skill acquisition (“How can you train skills through the internet?”).
What made it even more difficult: Some Egyptian partners already had some experience of e-learning. But the forms of e-learning they had encountered had adopted the teaching paradigm prevalent in Egypt (lecturing) and focused on synchronous teaching methods. The e-learning component was thus often confined to simultaneous transmission of a lecture over intranet or internet without much scope for teacher-student interaction.
Anyplace and anytime
In contrast, even the online elements of the programme devised by InWEnt was geared to the didactic principles of actively engaging participants and making them act for themselves. Great importance was thus attached to not only teacher-student but also student-student communication and interaction. Many Egyptian participants found this unusual but most responses were extremely positive.
With this kind of e-learning, the focus is on asynchronous communication and interaction, which permits participants to organise the learning process according to their individual needs (“anyplace and anytime”). Participants were thus dealing with a transferable vocational training programme, which combines e-learning with conventional teaching methods and demonstrates the versatility as well as the pros and cons of e-learning.
The 2003 “Arab Human Development Report” noted a widening knowledge gap between the industrialised world and the Arab nations. And high on the list of reasons cited were barriers to access to modern information technologies. To prevent the imminent uncoupling of these countries from the train of global technological and economic development, the report called for the creation of a knowledge society in the Arab world.
Martina Müller-Norouzi
is a project manager with InWEnt's “Technological Cooperation, System Development and Management in Professional Training” unit and organises programs for participants from the Middle East and North Africa.
martina.mueller-norouzi@inwent.org
Uwe Wieckenberg
is a consultant and trainer for e-learning and quality development in further education and works as a lecturer for InWEnt.
wieckenberg@bildungstransfer.de
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