EFFECTIVE PRACTICES DATABASE | ||
| title | Training the Trainers - Government Funding Scheme | |
| background | The Irish government, through the Higher Education Authority (HEA) has, for a number of years, provided funding to support training programmes for staff (academic, administrative and technical) in higher education. One of the themes they identified was the need to develop competence and confidence in the use of ICT in teaching and learning, since new technologies were appearing rapidly. | |
| practice | The Training the Trainers programme is advertised each year, inviting applications from universities for funding of training courses. Each of these courses usually consists of a series of workshops and the funding is typically up to ¤ 15,000-20,000 per course to cover costs of trainers, materials, development, etc. For the past few years, all universities have applied for funding under this scheme to run courses on VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments), multimedia development, the pedagogy of technology, computer aided assessment, etc. | |
| benefits | Funding levels are high and enable us to employ professional trainers and cover their costs of transport and accommodation as well as costs in developing, printing and facilitating the workshop programmes. This is a regular source of funding and is additional to core grants. In addition, there is encouragement to share materials, thus developed, with others and the training can be integrated with other ongoing programmes. | |
| shortcomings | There have been significant shifts in the deadline for applications from year to year, so it can be difficult to plan. The funding is often provided at a late stage in the academic year and must be spent by the end of the financial year and, therefore, planning and organisation can be more complex than it should be. It is also often difficult to anticipate which proposals will be accepted and which rejected. The evaluation process seems to be unclear. | |
| future plans | The HEA has been reviewing this process and it is hoped that this will help to develop a system that takes account of the difficulties reported by the universities. It is also important to know that the scheme will continue to run for a number of years, rather than simply waiting each year. | |
| other references | ||
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| costs | Costs are associated with preparing the application and this can take a number of weeks because all training courses (not just eCompetence) have to be submitted together. | |
| replicability | 1 | |
| effectiveness | 4 | |
| notes | ||
| contact | Iain Mac Labhrainn
CELT
NUI, Galway iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie>iain.maclaren@nuigalway.ie | |
