New opportunities for Adult Training Centers at vocational colleges in Uzbekistan

Partnership of dvv international with vocational colleges, where adult training centers were opened as a result of the “INSTRUCT” project, could be characterized as long-term cooperation aimed to develop new approaches to training of various adult population categories.  

This is true! If the previous activity focused on training and retraining of unemployed population, now we strive to develop other forms of education, such as civic education aimed at personality development, language courses, arranging lectures, seminars and groups of interest, and advanced training for staff of local enterprises and farms. 

To ensure sustainable activities of adult training centers (ATCs), in 2009 dvv international stopped   direct financing of the courses and retained such tasks as professional development of personnel, promotion of education quality improvement and new areas of activity (see previous para.). Also, dvv international supported the ATC physical infrastructure development. 

It should be noted that not all ATCs are successful in promoting new educational offers for adults – if some ATCs actively started introducing new areas of training into their activities while preserving the “old” and long mastered ones, others report problems even with preserving their existing areas of activity. 

One of the main challenges associated with arranging fee-based courses for adults was that the ATC staff lacked relevant knowledge and skills in marketing, entrepreneurship and business planning. Thus, a decision was taken to carry out a series of trainings to implement the ILO program “Start and Improve Your Business” into the ATC activity (see the article by Mr. M. Khadaev for more information on those activities). 

Organization of “Summer schools” for heads and personnel of farms at ATCs of agricultural vocational colleges resulted in an individual project “Support to private agricultural sector in cooperation with colleges in Uzbekistan”, which is implemented jointly with the “MBM-Guruhi” company (see article by Ms. M. Kuchkarova for information  on this project). 

Training program for the course “Waiter-Barmen” has been developed and is planned to be implemented at four ATCs in the tourist regions of the country. 

In 2009, staff of dvv international and management of vocational colleges coordinated the issue of allocating special premises for ATC activities. This is about special rooms for the ATC office and classrooms for theoretical and practical sessions. We think that this will make it possible to arrange various courses in the daytime later on as previously ATCs could organize training in the evening only (when vocational colleges were not busy with their primary activity). 

Today we can state that the physical infrastructure required for successful operations of ATCs is available. 

We hope that the conducted activities will produce a positive effect to ensure sustainable activities of ATCs. 

Nodir Rahimov,

Project Coordinator 

dvv international