Advantages of modular training Efficiency

The modular approach is based on education of control and allows to detect and to offset weaknesses at the beginning but also during the learning and at the end. Control of the prior skills allows in particular to avoid setbacks.

Legibility

The modular organisation allows the participants to have a clear view of the training structure, of its aims and modalities.

Adaptability

The precision of the articulation of a module makes its integration easier in different trainings, in particular in the “common-core syllabus” of similar trainings.

The modular approach allows to individualize training, to organise the training follow-up spread over time, to process to partial validations (obtaining one or several modules before the final certificate), etc.

Opening

A modular teaching can be applied as in paths leading to a certificate as in paths leading to a qualification. It allows to mix publics.

Savings

Modular training allows to take into account trainees’ acquired experience and path savings. Indeed, the modular organisation allows the candidates to follow either the totality of the training or only certain modules.

Appropriateness with continuous training/tools of lifelong learning

Modular organisation allows to realise validation of skills module by module.

Thanks to its adaptability and its opening, modular training is particularly well adapted to continuous education. It allows more particularly to decompartmentalize the pathways of training.

The evolution and diversification of training modes which has resulted from the development of information and communication technology is helping to reduce certain forms of inequality in access to training opportunities, offering widely-differing target groups individualised, and therefore more appropriate, training solutions.

E-learning systems can offer everyone, whatever their whereabouts, their position in society or their job, the opportunity to access knowledge, either via multimedia correspondence courses, through schemes based on teaching resource centres, by distance-training systems or by any combination of these various forms of knowledge delivery.

The French Ministry of Education has for several years now been committed to developing e-learning, particularly in the field of further education, throughout the GRETA network and in universities. It has opted to concentrate on providing the necessary support services for learners (via occasional group sessions or distance support services), as being an essential factor of success.

Of course, the development of e-learning requires suitable policies as regards provision of equipment, both by the state (to computerise schools and local government services), and by businesses. It is also absolutely necessary to provide for the prior training of trainers for this new way of working, together with basic training in computer skills for everyone.

Various systems have been tested and applied more widely, both in France and as part of European partnerships inside projects conducted with funding from the European Social Fund.

Good Practice

1. Policy/practice

Title of good practice GRETA Network Name and full contact details of

key contact person

Keywords (These should also refer to themes relevant to other objectives groups where appropriate)

e-learning, GRETA, training workshops, training modules, distance training platform, distance training, support services, distance assessment, skills

Outline, Summary

The evolution and diversification of training modes which has resulted from the development of information and communication technology is helping to reduce certain forms of inequality in access to training opportunities, offering widely-differing target groups individualised, and therefore more appropriate, training solutions.

E-learning systems can offer everyone, whatever their whereabouts, their position in society or their job, the opportunity to access knowledge, either via multimedia correspondence courses, through schemes based on teaching resource centres, by distance-training systems or by any combination of these various forms of knowledge delivery.

2. Background

Related national/regional policies/initiatives

The French Ministry of Education has for several years now been committed to developing e-learning, particularly in the field of further education, throughout the GRETA* network and in universities. It has opted to concentrate on providing the necessary support services for learners (via occasional group sessions or distance support services), as being an essential factor of success.

Of course, the development of e-learning requires suitable policies as regards provision of equipment, both by the state (to computerise schools and local government services), and by businesses. It is also absolutely necessary to provide for the prior training of trainers for this new way of working, together with basic training in computer skills for everyone.

Various systems have been tested and applied more widely, both in France and as part of European partnerships inside projects conducted with funding from the European Social Fund

3. Content of policy/initiative

Implementation (programmes, methods, measures and actions)

Some examples in France (regional level)

The “SARAPP” system: Rural outposts of personalised training workshops (“Sites Antennes Rurales d’Atelier de Pédagogie Personnalisée”)

Set up in the Midi-Pyrénées Region, this system is based on neighbourhood training sites set in schools or in municipal premises in rural areas. Each site is fitted out with distance training equipment connected to a resource centre located at the centre of the network, in the Personalised Training Workshop (“APP” in French). The training methods are based on individualised training approaches and support services for learners. The result of a partnership between the regional offices of the Education and Labour ministries and local government services, the SARAPPs created a new function, that of training mediator, that is a person who provides trainees with on-site technical and methodological assistance and who also ensures correct liaison with the distant trainer.

The distance training platform set up in the Champagne-Ardennes Region by a company belonging to the metallurgy sector of the Usinor Group (Tréfileurope).

The originality of this innovative system is that it provides distance training for staff-members at the company’s different sites and also for staff-members of SMEs located close to these sites. The courses on offer address both vocational and general areas of training and are mainly geared to obtaining diplomas and vocational qualifications. Distance support services are provided by GRETA trainers, via video and computer links. The multimedia equipment and training materials are installed on the Tréfileurope sites by the GRETA, and can be accessed by staff-members of local SMEs operating in different sectors of activity.

Scope or level: national, regional, local

At a European level, some projects have been led between France and other European countries:

- In Austria, in the Styria Region, the Technikum Joanneum in Graz (the Regional Institute of Vocational Training) has set up an innovative training system, as part of a European ADAPT project, for the automotive supply sector. General and specialist training modules are delivered to staff-members of local SMEs and the Institute’s own students, via the Internet. Some of the modules were designed in liaison with other project partners, including Birmingham University in the UK, and tried out by company employees in Germany and by GRETA trainees in France.

- In Denmark, the Regional Institute of Vocational Training EUC-SYD in Sonderborg is developing methods for the distance assessment of the immediate and longer-term effects of further training for groups of salaried workers. The

results of these appraisals are of equal benefit to the Institute, the companies and the staff-members concerned, by enabling them to work together on improving the training response and thus the individual levels of qualification, through constant adaptation of the training courses.

- In Scotland, the Glasgow Telecolleges Network, working together with the Nord-Pas-de-Calais Region of France and its local GRETAs, is designing complementary e-learning products to the European Computer Driving Licence. The aim is to provide both the people who are preparing to take this certificate and employers and training centres with a clearer vision of the skills already acquired and those still needing to be acquired. The trans-national co-operation was centred on the production of a training specifications document and of remote diagnostic testing tools.

- In Italy, The grouping of vocation training centres in the Piedmont Region offers a mixed training solution for SMEs: a system which combines CD-ROMs, the Internet and on-site training, to allow staff-members of SMEs in the region, as well as groups of young adults, to develop new skills in various vocational fields.

This training-provision is part of a larger inter-regional project, which aims to help training centres with their necessary adaptation to all that is required by the specific aspects of e-learning. It is based on a website and on virtual regional resource centres.

The various users (regional vocational training centres, businesses and institutions) organise personalised training programmes, taking account of the needs of the groups being targeted and the aims of individuals’ personal training projects. They borrow the teaching materials which are displayed on an on-line catalogue organised as a data-base, with modules from both the public and private training markets. Each module is delivered with a description of the precise teaching objectives and target skills, specific multimedia teaching aids and progress assessment exercises. Course-content is updated regularly to avoid the risk of obsolescence. Users are provided with on-line assistance. Management of administrative, financial and teaching services is also provided by the server. This system was developed in the Piedmont Region and has given rise to profitable exchanges of practise with the GRETA network in France and with British, German and Spanish partners.

Partners involved(in the design, implementation and evaluation of the policy/initiative)

Design phase ₋ Ministry of Education throughout the GRETA network = “Groupement d’ETAblissements”: a group of French state schools located in the same area, which pool their human and material resources to carry out their public service mission in further education, as part of their mission for lifelong education and training. There are nearly 300 GRETAs throughout France, making up a national network. The GRETA network is the leading further training network in France, in terms of the number of people trained (500 000 per year), the number of training hours taught (75 million trainee hours per year) and its annual turnover (2,5 billion francs per year). The GRETAs are not funded by the Ministry of Education budget, but operate with their own resources, in a competitive market.

− regional offices of the Education

− Labour ministries

− local government services

− Universities

Implementation phase Implemented by regional vocational training centres, businesses and institutions

Target Group(s) and beneficiaries (definition and estimated numbers)

Individuals, staff members, students

Sources of the information provided

Filippo Bignami

Foundation ECAP, Switzerland

3.11. Description of the situation of the modular training in

Switzerland

1. Modularisation – general framework

Apart from the apparent continuity of the system, the Swiss educational system is characterized nowadays by a high degree of reforms at all levels, aimed at maintaining the competitiveness of the country and at fostering greater flexibility in the educational system, up to now rather rigid. At the same time we should bear in mind that very often the complexity of the system, both considering the balance between different regional interests and the characteristics of the above mentioned Swiss certifications landscape, provides obtstacles and causes delays in the development of the reforms. In this framework could be also presented the case of Modularisation, a well known issue in the local debate since the seventhies, but actually far from becoming an asset of the VET system.

The need to modularise training pathways, looking essentially to further training, has been recognised by the Federal authorities since the second half of the ninethies, for at least two reasons: − the whole system looked too heavy and rigid to answer lifelong learning diffused needs, in a very

unstable environment, hampering long term investments typically asked by traditional training offers leading to a tertiary level certification;

− the modularisation was seen as a proper opportunity to foster both the flexibilisation of certification systems and a wider access of adult learners to training and diplomas, creating also the basis for a partial or global recognition of prior experiential, non formal and informal, learning.

These perspectives encountered however many difficulties to be implemented. After anexperimental phase, committed by the Federation to a Network association of Training providers and Social partners (Modula), the Federal Department of Professional Training and Technology emaneted in 2002 the Guidelines concerning modularisation representing the general legal basis on which some targeted experiences have been launched during the last years, waiting for a more comprehensive discipline.

The Guidelines underline some principles:

− the Federal Authorities are responsible for the implementation and the coordination of the system, intended in a wide perspective, but in cooperation with the local authorities and the social partners; − modular training is defined as a combination of modules and units (whose learning “charge” should

not overcome 40/80 lessons) each one of them related to the acquisition of a specific operational competence, that have to be proved and checked at the end of any module;

− thiscombination – organised in pathways – normally leads to the acquisition of a certificate or a diploma;

− modular training should be normally applied to further training, for the acquisition of a tertiary level degree mainly in non academic pathways (see above); nevertheless also some initial training diplomas could be achieved for particular reasons through a modularised path (see for instance next chapter, concerning the modularisation of ICT vocational training in Switzerland);

− the aim of modularisation is mainly the flexibilisation and individualisation of learning (art. 5, 1), followed by the possibility to take in account partial qualifications acquired in other contexts and to support the transferability of these qualifications from one local or international context to another.

The Federal Guidelines have not been modified or updated after the entry in force of the new Federal law on Vocational Training in 2005, but the focus of the debate moved from the implementation of a comprehensive modular system to the diffusion of targeted experimentations.

This occured in the field of further training – such as for the training of the trainers and in general in the areas covered by the umbrella association ModuQua (www.moduqua.ch), that replaced Modula.

The potentialities of modularisation approach have been exploited in a more effective way in the reform of ICT vocational training system.

We should also bear in mind that other dossiers, directly linked to modularisation, took the floor during the last two years. We could mention the participation of Switzerland to the implementation of the so called Copenhagen process (European Qualification Framework, ECVET…) and the development of alternative qualification systems (art. 33 of the new law) implying the assessment and certification of experiential competences, and the possibility to participate to final professional exams combining recognition of prio r learning and training, offered of course on a modular basis.