Tailor-made Training: A very effective capacity building instrument
Nuffic’s Tailor-made Training (TMT) programme is fast, flexible, responsive, relevant, demand-driven and target-oriented. In this blog, we unpack these adjectives of acclamation to illustrate just what it is that distinguishes this modality of capacity building.
The programme
The Tailor-made Training programme is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and is one of several capacity building programmes which Nuffic is managing on behalf of the ministry. We have closely been involved in the programme since its inception in January 2012 and are enthusiastic about this manner of supporting organisational capacity building. The programme finances the training of a group of employees within an organisation having a shared capacity gap.
Demand-driven
TMT is really tailored to existing capacity needs of the requesting organisations. The training is meant to build or strengthen the capacity of the employees in their functioning to achieve the organisation’s goals. The specific capacity gaps are and have to be fully identified by the organisations requesting the training, making TMT fully demand-driven. The courses offered do not come from a prescribed menu and the learning is truly rooted in the needs and context of the learners. Of course when assessing proposals, Nuffic checks the training requests against eligibility conditions set out for the programme.
Flexibility in coverage
The TMT programme does not impose restrictions on the topics of the training. And so proposals are accepted from a wide range of disciplines covering a wide variety of training needs. Such flexibility in the eligibility of topics reduces skewness in the areas of the labour market that are strengthened.
The geographical coverage of the TMT programme is also liberal. Training is offered to organisations in as many as 62 bilateral partner countries in four continents.
Access to TMT is also open to individuals with a wide range of academic backgrounds. The programme does not impose conditions on the minimum academic qualifications of trainees, as do degree-based scholarships programmes. However, it is imperative that the trainees have a functional relationship with the requesting organisation. As such, the programme is cognisant of the wide range of academic levels of personnel that an organisation may need for proper operation.
Fast, relevant and target-oriented
The TMT that was awarded to a national electricity authority in 2012 is a perfect example of the responsiveness, relevance and target-orientation of the TMT programme. This organisation requested a training on load management through increased operational efficiency. At the time of the application, the country had been facing a power crisis for more than a decade. The problem was getting worse with time to the extent that the nation was surviving with power cuts of 16–18 hours per day by December 2011. Through the training, the organisation has been able to manage precise distribution of power, improve in managing operation systems, identify leakages, save energy and sustain power provision in effective ways.
Not only did this training build human resources and organisational capacity, but it also directly and almost immediately contributed to national development and the proper functioning of all (economic) sectors and individuals who rely on electricity in that country.
Furthermore, considering that 2 weeks, 20 trainees and less than € 50,000 was all that was needed to correct such a major and debilitating problem to the functioning of a whole nation, the awarded TMT can be said to have been value for money and fast in achieving tangible results.
Responsive
The TMT programme is also very responsive and allows for lean and mean administration. The absence of long bureaucratic, multi-stakeholder and multi-sector consultation processes and sector reviews to identify capacity needs, means that interventions can be implemented quickly.
Furthermore, TMT trainees are often not away from home for very long, as is the case with degree-based scholarship programmes. Remaining within the work environment has the advantage that the training can be linked to the actual implementation context and the lessons can be implemented in a timely manner.
Read more in our next blog coming this Friday, the 15th of February 2013.