TUCA’s Training School Network and virtual courses

Through the Training School Network, the TUCA is launching a process to articulate and coordinate trade union training on continental level. The characteristics of the network are to be a “virtual classroom” for learning, an educational “resource centre” and a “forum for interaction”. The objective is to train leaders and facilitators to develop alternative thinking, to facilitate the development of proposals to strengthen the trade union movement so that it can contribute to the building of a new society based on sustainability and democracy with decent work as the driving force of this new development model.

The Training School Network emerged in 2010 from an ISCOD/TUCA initiative. The first phase of the network was managed by ISCOD. Progress was made in the setting up of a database of documents on education, a database of trainers and specialists on trade union issues and in the dissemination of the different training programmes offered by the institutions that were the original members of the network. The TUCA took over the management and coordination of the network in 2012 and began a process to include all their affiliates in the network.

This led to a training course being set up for online tutors (in July 2012) within the framework of the “virtual classroom”. The objective is to develop knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours to work in virtual environments focusing on management tools, communication, monitoring and learning in virtual environments (Online learning).

The course is made up of 4 modules i.e.
- Module 1: Online tutorial for trade union training,
- Module 2: Virtual learning environments: organisational and technical basics
- Module 3: Ideas and teaching strategies – learning,
- Module 4: Learning methods and resources.

This is a fully online course although on this occasion there was a classroom activity involving some of the participants at the beginning of the course. In practical terms, the course is delivered by distance learning and online by the Platform of trade union training school network’s virtual classrooms. The course duration is 160 hours over a 5-month period (23 July to 9 December 2012).

The virtual course participants were 20 trainers and specialist leaders who had previously taken part in classroom, virtual and distance learning training courses by the TUCA Secretariat for Trade Union Policy and Education between 2009 – 2011 and trainers who are members of national training teams who would like to develop the skills to work in virtual learning environments for adult workers.
In this way, the TUCA through its Training School Network addresses the challenges posed by technical information and communications tools (TIC) and converts them into a strategic resource to articulate and coordinate trade union training on continental level. The online courses are another training method, not a substitute for but a complement to, classroom courses.

Article provided by TUCA