El enfoque de aprendizaje en Turín

The advancement of decent work for all occurs at every level of the capacity-development process, from matching jobs with personal competencies to promoting sustainable national policies. Staying in touch with global trends, utilizing new opportunities, and adapting to rapidly evolving environments that affect organizational and individual contexts increasingly requires learning in diverse circumstances and through a variety of modalities. The separation between work, life, and learning has become blurred. Learning opportunities that can enhance effectiveness and well-being in life and in the workplace are infinite. The key to harnessing them is sustained learning. The Turin Learning Approach is a pedagogical framework based on the three pillars of the ITC-ILO’s learning strategy: relevance, quality, and impact. The standards expressed as thirteen ingredients encapsulate common practices in all activities and create the recipe that differentiates the Centre from other learning and training institutes.

Relevance means making sure that the Centre’s activities are customer-oriented, that they respond to the current needs of individuals, and that they contribute to organizational development agendas. Relevant training enables participants to adapt their competencies to the new requirements of their organization’s economic and social context as well as the labour market. Many activities, therefore, have a cross-cutting focus, in addition to specialist topics. To ensure relevance, the Centre continues to establish strategic partnerships with reputable national and regional institutions to run tailor-made activities.

Individual and organizational learning needs are systematically assessed, matched, and aligned to ensure relevance and retention.

Diversity in nationality, gender, background, and experience is an asset that is made use of in the design and running of all learning activities. Participants are exposed to multiple contexts and immeasurable amounts of information by emphasizing on sharing knowledge and experience. Gender is mainstreamed in all activities and learning material.

Design is of primary importance to the learning process. It is flexible, customized to participants’ needs, and based on local contexts whenever possible. Training is held in eight languages.

Quality services guarantee the Centre’s competitive edge over other training institutions. The Centre offers value-based learning opportunities that encourage participation and empower professional action using innovative and unconventional methods, in addition to reputable industry standards.

Most training activities are blended, and consist of three phases: 

• Initial information, resources, and knowledge are accessed from a distance using Internet tools.
• Face-to-face training furthers the sharing of best practices and upgrades knowledge, skills, and attitudes through exposure to international expertise, and finally
• Distance learning techniques exchange resources, foster forums, and facilitate the application of new competencies.

The ITC-ILO contains a repository of learning resources generated from over 40 years of its global development operations, including e-learning initiatives, the creation of multi-language learning material, access to a unique selection of learning resources and databases, cooperation with UN agencies, as well as links with universities and centres of excellence worldwide.

The campus and facilities of the ITC-ILO are conducive to learning and sharing knowledge. All the classrooms have workstations with Internet connections, and some are equipped for video-conferencing and simultaneous interpretation. Other services that maximize learning include: multimedia design and production, translation, interpretation, and information systems. All off-campus venues are adapted to ensure that their environment supports learning.

The training professionals are proficient in leading pedagogical practices in addition to their specialisation in the subject matter. The multiple capacities of the Centre’s staff are continuously upgraded and applied in context-specific instructional or facilitation techniques.

The Centre’s primary goal is to develop institutional capacity in ILO member countries. Themes and content are built on United Nations global values, and ILO knowledge and expertise, in support of decent work and sustainable development.

Activities are experiential and results-based. Methods are active, participatory, practice-oriented, and make extensive use of information and communication technology. At least 60% of the time is used for structured and facilitated learning, sharing experience among practitioners, and practical exercises. This means that lecturing is limited to no more than 40% of presentations by experts.

The Centre’s training activities are conducive to sharing participants’ diverse and extensive knowledge and experience acquired in their respective working environments. The pedagogical management of these exchanges fosters the creation of transferable knowledge.

Impact is about making a difference. Providing support for participants when planning how to apply newly acquired competencies within their organizational contexts increases the impact of learning. Impact and sustainability can be enhanced when several members of the same organization are trained, and when course participants can continue to interact through communities of practice and professional networks. Because impact is becoming increasingly important to constituents and donors, the Centre constantly monitors the results of its training to improve the quality.

Training is Job-Related. A portion of every ITC-ILO workshop is devoted to coaching about sensitization techniques, advocacy, and/or policy development so that participants can concretely spread and embed learning at the organizational level to produce a multiplier effect.

Former participants can continue to benefit from the Centre’s expertise and remain connected among themselves through informal networks.

All training is systematically evaluated against previously set objectives. Regular reports document the findings to create a feedback loop that continuously feeds into the design and implementation of new programmes.