Project Capacity building of Xuan Mai Vocational School for Agriculture and Rural Development (XMVS) in organisational management

General Information

 Approaching Method

The school leaders is changing their management conception about their students and participants and has the intention to make the school a ‘client-driven’ organisation. Xuan Mai school have been working closely with CECEM who is a consultancy, which provides the school with some ideas about client-driven management. The new management conception has been popular in their words and actions.

Project Goal and Objectives

The project aims to improve training on rural development with focus on the development of rural community leadership through renovating the organisational management of Xuan Mai school, to contribute to the cause of rural development in North Vietnam.

Indicators of success:

-         - Number of students register to enroll in the school increased by at least 30%, two years after the project compared to 2003
- Number of training contracts rewarded/won increased by 100% in the last year of the project as compared to 2003.

Project Objectives

Objective 1 (organisational culture)

By the end of the project, client-driven working style has been established as domineering working style of the school.
Indicator of success:
- All training programmes revised regularly according to the learning needs of clients

Objective 2 (managerial personnel)

By the end of the project, all current and potential managerial personnel of the school have become able to fully function in their managerial positions.
Indicator of success:
- No complaints by staff members about bad management
- At least five managerial staff are able to support other managers at different levels
 

Objective 3 (managerial systems)

By the end of the project, management systems of Xuan Mai school have been designed and put into operation to serve effectively the achievement of the school’s strategic business plans.
Indicator of success:
- No complaints of staff members about poor management systems
- Other vocational schools in Vietnam express their wishes to learn from Xuan Mai school about management
 

Objective 4 (management training programmes)
By the end of the project, at least two new training programmes have been successfully designed, piloted and finalised based on thorough research of new demands of the school’s clients.
Indicator of success:
- complements of the first lots of participants in the course evaluation
- the school has won at least two training contracts on the topics
 

Building the Capacity of Xuan Mai Vocational School in Teaching Methodology and Community Development Approaches

Project Agency: The Centre for Community Empowerment – CECEM (previously called LADECEN)

General background

The Vietnamese Government has identified rural development as one of the most prioritized development goals over the last 10 years. The Gorvenment has designed and implemented target programs at all levels in order to reduce poverty. Besides, assistance for development programs from international donors and non-governmental organizations has increased over the same time period.
However, the capacity of staff of governmental and non-governmental organizations in managing and implementing development programs and projects remains limited. Therefore it is important to invest in building capacity for officials at province, district and commune levels; for development workers and for agriculture extension workers.
Building capacity for the above identified actors is the major function of training institutions under the MARD. These institutions have technical expertise for building capacity of those who work in rural development. They have experience in providing technical training in agriculture, forestry and irrigation. However, their training capacity in community development has been limited, especially with regard to training specific skills of working with communities.
 

Outline of the co-operation Project

Xuan Mai School and CECEM have worked together on a range of small initiatives for the past two years. They understand each other’s strengths and development directions. They respect each other’s leadership and commitment to poor rural communities. The two organisations have jointly designed this project.

The target group will be the teaching staff of Xuan Mai School. All teachers will have some participation in the project through gender-and-development workshops and other in-service training. A selected group of 15 Resource Teachers will complete training in training methodology (basic and advanced) and community development. A core group of these Resource Teachers will receive intensive specialist training, coaching and supervision in participatory programme management during the project’s three years.
The group of Resource Teachers will be selected by the School against agreed criteria:
• being willing to apply active training methodology;
• proven learning and application capacity;
• priority of selection will be given to women teachers who will form at least 50% of the group,
• the group will cover each of the school’s key professional teaching areas;
• the group will be of an age range representing the overall levels of experience of the School’s teaching staff.

The RT group will be trained as trainers in the areas of active training methodology and skills, Community Development, and Participatory Management of Development Programmes. Their development will follow the proven process used to develop TDL consultants:
1) participating in the targeted training courses lead by TDL trainers,
2) preparing, implementing and being regularly coached through professional development plans,
3) working as assistant trainers with TDL trainers,
4) leading the targeted training courses under the supervision and coaching of TDL trainers,
5) and finally training another group of their Xuan Mai colleagues through the same process.

The project includes a substantial component of supervision, training follow-up and coaching, which will be provided by TDL . This will be dedicated to one-to-one and in-class support of the Resource Teachers. The Resource Teachers will also be supported in writing the Xuan Mai Manual for Participatory Training of rural development workers as a key resource for training their colleagues, and the trainees who come through the school each year.

The Project also includes a component of overall co-ordination and monitoring of the project’s impact on the school.

Overall Goal

The overall goal of the project is to sustainably improve the management and training within rural development programmes in Vietnam by building the capacity of a lead training institution – the Xuan Mai School.
 

Project Objectives

Objective 1 (training methodology):

By the end of the project, Xuan Mai School will be recognised within the formal training sector as a leader in the use of active training methodologies.
A core group of Resource Teachers will have established a an internal consultancy group in the area of training methodology, modelled on the existing Professional Training Groups in Economics, Trade and Agriculture. The group will be consistently using active training methodology in their own classes. They will have designed and printed the Xuan Mai Participatory Training Manual. Their in-service courses in training methodology will be a fixture on the summer training calendar for Xuan Mai staff.
Objective 2 (community development approaches):
By the end of the project, Xuan Mai mainstream programmes will all include teaching of: community development principles and processes, and the rationale and practice of stakeholder participation.
Where cadres-in-training will be responsible for managing development projects, they will also receive tuition in the facilitation of community-based project design, planning and monitoring, and in the preparation of development programme reports.
Objective 3 (training services to the wider development community):
By the end of Year 3 of the Project, Xuan Mai teachers (alone or in collaboration with TDL) will have offered 20 weeks of “public” development training courses in the targeted areas of development practice (community development etc.).
These courses will be fully subscribed by government and donor development programmes, and evaluated as successful by participants and their organisations.