Adult Learning and Education (ALE) Institutions worldwide work in an ever-changing environment which is affected by ongoing climate change, economic and work-related shifts, as well as extant conflicts and wars. This is especially true for Eastern European countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, where communities are facing the continuing war of aggression against Ukraine and its consequences.
ALE-Institutions and its managers need strategies and tools to cope with these challenges and transformations. To strengthen the capacities of the managerial staff in partner ALE-Institutions in the wider region, DVV International’s European regional project planned a needs-based training founded on Curriculum managerALE.
Assessing the needs
As a first step in order to identify the needs of ALE-Institutions in terms of managerial capacities, a needs assessment was initiated in March 2023. For this assessment, a total of 12 centres were selected: two from Armenia, two from Georgia, one from Moldova, and seven from Ukraine.
The result was that 13 topics were identified as relevant in the current context for the managers of participating centres. In dialogues with an external consultant and the respective Country and Regional Directors of DVV International, these topics were prioritised for the trainings, both on the national and regional level.
Strategic planning, the definition of the vision and mission of an organisation, and management and leadership processes were identified as the most crucial topics for the regional level. For the national level, the focus was placed on crisis management tools, burnout prevention mechanisms, financial management, fundraising and managing trainers’ and volunteers’ involvement in ALE-Institutions.
Against this backdrop, for the capacity building training the team decided to use selected topics from two modules of Curriculum ManagerALE:
- Module 2: Needs assessment and strategic planning;
- Module 3: Internal Management and Leadership Skills and Competencies.
Regional training: building capacities
The regional capacity-building training was held from 16-21 October, in Ureki, Georgia, and hosted 26 participants from Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The Adult Learning and Education Institutions in the four participating countries include various organisations such as municipal centres, non-governmental organisations, communal centres or university departments. With regard to this diversity, the training was designed as a learning and sharing experience exercise in order to equip managers with knowledge, skills, and strategies related to planning, leadership and management, which are necessary to adapt to and prosper in the ever-changing educational landscape, especially considering the ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine and the refugee crisis in Armenia. The Managers of Adult Learning and Education Institutions from Armenia unfortunately couldn’t join the training because they were actively involved in relief work within their communities.
The first part of the training dealt with the topic of strategic planning. The trainer highlighted the importance of a good strategy as a foundation of the work of ALE-Institutions and explained the main factors influencing the development of the strategy. Those factors could be external, such as armed conflicts, economic or environmental crises, which affect the environment in and around the local community where the institution is located. Internal factors may include a change in the executive board or the exit of the founder of an organisation. Other drastic changes could be in the topics covered in the work with local communities, financial struggles, or even increased wealth of the organisation. These changes would make an organisation reconsider its values, mission or vision and thereby influence its strategic planning.
The second part of the training focused on formulating impact indicators and strategic goals related to community and organisational success. Participants worked in small groups to create specific impact indicators and strategic goals aligned with their missions. Participants also learned about the importance of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) in strategic planning as well as agile management and LEAN Management principles. Attention was brought to empowering leadership strategies, and participants assessed their organisations’ use of empowering techniques.
During the final evaluation, participants highlighted the relevance and applicability of the chosen topics, thus equipping themselves with sufficient knowledge to progress in reenforcing ALE-Institutions and their managers’ ability to respond effectively to the existing and emerging needs of their communities.
The way forward
The regional needs-based capacity-building training for Managers of ALE-Institutions has proven to be a highly valuable and effective learning experience for its participants. The evaluation results reveal a substantial increase in knowledge across a range of essential topics. The positive feedback and gratitude expressed by the participants reflects the quality of the training programme. The managers are now urged to apply the new knowledge and tools in their organisations, considering the specific needs of their staff members and the communities they work in.
To offer further assistance in updating strategic plans, the participants will be able to arrange consultations with the trainer as part of the follow-up support of the training. Handouts with training materials, presentations and templates were shared with all the participants as well.
Since the process of change in any society never stops, the goal of any ALE-Institution is to adapt and overcome emerging barriers and challenges, always answering the needs of its learners in the communities in the best way possible and understanding the constraints. We hope that these activities will help managers to succeed in this task and help their communities to develop.
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