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The workshop on
training and development within the International Conference on
”Qualifying the actors in adult and continuing education” is about the
most growing field of work in which Adult and Continuing Education (ACE)
is situated. This field of work is not really a traditional one.
Training and development means to help organizations, groups or
individuals to solve behaviour, work and performance related problems
in the context of organizational developments by the use of learning
solutions for individuals, groups or even complete organizations.
Usually nowadays such corporate training and development is called human
resource development (HRD) and considers consultancy for ‘learning’
also. Historically within ACE training and development grew out of a
line of thinking originated by Knowles. This line of thinking stresses a
number of assumptions like the adult knows why he or she is learning,
the role of the adult ‘self’-concept and that it is his or her own
responsibility to learn or not, moreover the experience, motivation and
readiness to learn of the learner are consequently important issues.
These assumptions and issues are still very vivid in training and
development.
The workshop on
training and development will address the following questions:
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What is the role and
position of training and development within the field of ACE?
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What are the practices
across Europe in the field of training and development?
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What are the professional
competences needed in this field?
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What kind of research is
done in this field and what is needed to find out?
The role and position
of corporate training and development within the field of ACE in Europe
can be described in most countries, for instance The Netherlands, as
more or less separated from the more traditional adult and continuing
education, like for instance formal vocational and general education.
From a theoretical and researchers' perspective as well as a
practitioners' perspective training and development has many fathers.
This makes it rather difficult to grasp the role and position of
training and development within both the field of ACE and the learning
society as a whole.
With
respect to the practices in the field of corporate training and
development across Europe there will be a key-note to introduce these
practices. What can we say about these practices? And what can we learn
about them in relation to the contingency with the contextual cultures
and countries?
A
second key-note will be held on the issue of the competences of the
training and development professionals in Europe. What do we know about
these competences? And what professional competences do the workers in
the field of HRD and learning consultancy really need? What does this
mean to the content of the bachelor and master curricula focussing on
training and development?
In
general, an outcome of the workshop on training and development should
be also an indication of a European research programme on corporate
training and development. What is the ‘body of knowledge’ we have and
what should be investigated in the forthcoming years?
Input: Wim Nijhof,
University of Twente
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