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Workshop D
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Workshop A |
Workshop B |
Workshop C |
Workshop D
Workshop D - Session 3
When we look at lifelong learning from the providers' point of view, we actually have to serve simultaneously two kinds of customers. We have the individual who actually is looking for competences, skills, and the opportunity to learn, update and upgrade in order to stay employable. This actually means for providers they have to have very good links and connections with the working life. At the same time, these individuals are very different. They have different kinds of demands. Their background is different; they want to learn differently. What this means for the providers is that they have to be able to package the same content in different forms and different packages. We call it the same word as the industries use, mass customisation. At the same time, the individual today wants to get credit for his learning, which means that the providers must be able to assess learning outcomes, regardless of the method of learning. They are also serving, at the same time, companies who have today very complex problems. These problems cannot be solved from the point of view of one discipline or one department only. And when we look at the universities, for example, today they are still managed centrally according to the results and targets by departments. That does not encourage the kind of co-operation that is needed. Companies also have common or shared needs that actually go throughout the organisation. This means that the providers should collaborate, not only work together, but also horizontally in both ways. Then we come to the hierarchy problem. The university level is not so brilliant at collaborating with the lower level of providers. I know that this country is an exception with all these new universities, but in many other countries we still have this hierarchy problem. When we looked at the speed of change in the working life, it means that providers cannot go with a change if they do not have a vision of the working life that they share with the companies and with the employers. There is a need for a joint competence development strategy. That would be made by, for instance, the competence development group which can be industry-based or regional, that has representatives from research, industry and, lastly, education. Nokia Tyres I would like to now share one example. I have been working a couple of years already with a company called Nokia Tyres. It is located close to Tampere, about 200 kilometres from Helsinki. The company manufactures tyres and has specialised in tyres for the Nordic environment. It has been very modern in many senses, even though it is more than 100 years old. We have carried out a competence development analysis and a competence development strategy for them, and they have a lifelong learning scheme for the whole organisation. This means that everybody can actually have their own personal development plan and everybody can have credits for all the learning they do. It is also possible for people to get qualifications at the next level to the one they are at. We realised that what the organisation really needs throughout, from workers to CEO, is a shared kind of understanding of financial or business information. We called all the different providers of information in the whole region of Tampere. We took the union people; we took people from various parts of the organisation representing manufacturing, planning, management and so on; we looked at the financial information. What would be the common needs? What is the common message that we should get through? The answer is that everybody should understand the objectives of the company in money terms, should understand how the company is managed using financial reporting and should understand quality. They should also have the ability to read the reporting and balance sheet. We then looked at the specific needs of different task groups or job groups and roles. We divided these specific needs into four categories, which very nicely corresponded to the educational level framework we have in Finland. We went to all these different providers and said, 'What are the existing courses that already meet these needs? What is still needed?' We told individuals that you all get credits for learning and you have the opportunity to get whatever qualification you are interested in. You have to remember, in that kind of very manufacturing-orientated old company, the average age is 46, and there are a lot of people who do not have any formal qualifications. They have good professional skills, but that is not enough. Many people are now trying to get their vocational diplomas. Then there are people who are middle management and they have their own targets, and so on up to the top level managers, very many of whom are now aiming to get an MBA. Providers We have these providers. There are 10 - 12 altogether at this pilot work. We said that the shared goal to use is the competence need of this company; in this pilot case, it is the business understanding. That was one part. Then we also needed to tailor it, particularly the very company-specific part, and we wanted to test those messages that I mentioned before. Unfortunately I cannot go into all the details, but I can tell you that even the workers were able, after getting formal training, to use the kind of tools to understand how they actually calculated the cost of their own work, the productivity of their own department and what it cost to recruit, for instance, one new person. We used their own pocket or the money they had in their pocket and their own debts and assets and so on, so it was very practical at this level. The next level was actually looking at the whole departmental point of view. Then we went further and they made the whole analysis of productivity of each unit of the company. At this level we also integrated theoretical knowledge. It was always supported by these formal modules that were not held at the university if at all possible. We tried to take all the professors and so on to the company. That was very successful for the employees. They were very happy because they were able to learn and they were able to benefit individually from that learning. Now we have started to build up a virtual business school in Tampere, integrating all business providers and now serving all companies in that area. Then somebody said, 'Well, actually, this is the way we should think of lifelong learning for anything, nursing, medicine, whatever.' Virtual Campus That gave us the idea of starting to develop a Virtual Campus. At the same time we are now developing Tampere as a lifelong learning city based on this Virtual Campus, because Tampere has already invested a lot in information technology. They have Intranets and the target is that everybody should have access from the home, or from the office, or from anywhere, to modules of learning. It has not been that easy. The problems we faced were from the universities. They were not willing to do tailoring because they did not have resources. They were afraid that they would be eating their own existing markets, worried whether they should collaborate with the lower level of providers. The question really is: who is responsible for co-ordinating this kind of activity? This pilot worked because there were change agents who took care of that. Who in the future will be doing this kind of co-ordination and who takes care of the responsibility for the whole quality?
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