Quality Training: Bridging the professional divide
E-learning can be more easily integrated into on-the-job training than conventional courses, and more easily adapted to specific needs

You live and you learn,” says Abeer Al Jasmi, Head of Professional Qualifications at Knowledge Horizon Training Institute. “At least, that’s our experience. We find that the uptake on our courses for professional qualifications is exceeding anything we had anticipated.”

A recent Economist Intelligence Unit survey found nine out of 10 top executives rating business prospects over the next few years as being good or very good. Dynamism in emerging markets is the main reason for this optimism, with a majority of the 1,006 executives surveyed planning to invest more in developing countries rather than in developed economies. What is however, checking them is their concern for the shortage of talent and the lack of quality professional business training in emerging markets, despite the large numbers of students graduating each year. They say that a relatively low proportion has the necessary skills required by global firms, and that competition for those that do is intense.

Al Jasmi agrees: “People want quality from their training and that’s what we offer. But the demand is clearly driven by global trends. There’s a great deal of investment going on in the region and the price of oil is at an all-time high. That’s creating a lot of employment opportunities but a relatively low proportion of people actually have the professional skills that are required and as we get more and more international, investors’ demand in the Sultanate for professional training is only going to grow. What’s more, many people these days are finding that having a degree or a basic qualification is just not enough. There’s a move to upgrade qualifications to get promotions, change jobs, to acquire more professional credibility and respect in the workplace or, in some cases, simply for professional satisfaction.”

Meeting demand

The demand for training will surely increase as the economy prospers. With growing numbers of young Omanis entering the job market every year, this surely is an ideal opportunity for employment. But how are these new recruits going to be trained? While many training institutes and colleges do an excellent job, do they really have the capacity to deal with the demand? Studying abroad might be one answer, but desirable as the qualifications are, it is not always practical and certainly the cost can be a major obstacle.

Al Jasmi agrees saying, “Currently, local institutes do not have the capacity to deal with training in the kind of numbers that will be needed and it really is not cost-effective to send all of them overseas to train. But there is a solution. E-learning is an ideal tool. At Knowledge Horizon, we really see this as a major factor in training. It will make more courses available to more people and more economically – it saves money without cutting corners. What’s more, e-learning can be more easily integrated into on-the-job training than conventional courses, and more easily adapted to specific needs. And let’s face it, this kind of learning is more engaging to younger generations that have grown up with Playstations and Gameboys.” Al Jasmi’s observations were supported by Economist Intelligence Unit reports that suggest early investment in e-learning has been mainly based on maximising cost-efficiencies and effectiveness.

Back in 1999, John Chambers, President and CEO of Cisco Systems, had said, “The next big killer application for the internet is going to be education. Education is going to make e-mail usage look like a rounding error.” Certainly, Cisco has put its money where its mouth was and invested heavily in e-learning. Worldwide, however, e-learning has had a disappointing ride and produced varying results, with many e-learning providers themselves experiencing a steep learning curve.

“The use and scope of technology to replace or supplement the classroom approach has been growing steadily, but it’s not a runaway train by any means,” says Pat Galagan, Executive Editor at the American Society for Training and Development. However, a survey in October 2007 by UK-based training provider CCH Professional Development, reported in Accountancy magazine, found a big shift towards online continuous professional development (CPD). In fact, as many as 30 per cent of the accountants they surveyed had shunned traditional face-to-face training for compulsory CPD commitments, specially because of the time they could save through e-learning. These findings are backed by figures from the International Data Corporation, which estimates that RO20m will be spent on e-learning in Singapore in 2008, a three-fold increase
since 2004.

Global shift

E-learning is also thriving in the US. The research report, Growing by Degrees: Online Education in the US 2005, published in November 2006, gives a very positive outlook on online education. It says that online enrolment in the US increased from 1.98 million in 2003 to 2.35 million a year later, a growth rate more than 10 times that had been predicted by the National Center for Education Statistics for general post-secondary student population. On top of that, figures show that 65 per cent of US universities offering graduate face-to-face courses also offer online courses. A national survey in Australia also shows that 85 per cent of teachers and trainers in vocational education and training (VET) system are using e-learning.

So why the upsurge in e-learning, specially after many were saying its role had been overestimated? Al Jasmi has her own ideas: “Mainly, I think on-line learning has become more realistic, it’s more mature – it has come of age if you like. People in the business are learning from the mistakes they made in the early days. For me, the big difference is the change in how e-learning is approached. It was too rigid before. Today, there’s more imagination applied to how things are done as technology is much more flexible. In the beginning, it tried to replicate the classroom experience too much. But now we use everything from SMS messages to synchronous and asynchronous video conferencing, podcasts, you name it and you don’t have to conform to a traditional curriculum with 40 minute or 60 minute lessons. In fact, we tend to go for much shorter bites – say 20 minutes or so, making it easier for folks to fit the learning into their working day.

Another important development is that now e-learning doesn’t imply the absence of other humans. There’s more of a trend towards blended learning and let’s not forget the importance of e-communities – there’s lots of support out there. Many people embarking on e-learning courses have grown up with computers and are a lot more comfortable with them. Although I have to say that Internet penetration still has a long way to go and as this increases, it will make a big difference. And here’s something to think about – many of us have already taken the first steps in e-learning. Every time we do a Google search or look something up on-line, for example, on the Wikipedia, every time we use the computer to try and find something out, then we’re taking the first steps in e-learning all on our own.”
 

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