In the
world of education networking is a necessity, if you are not connected you are
probably missing so many opportunities to improve or have better performance in
what you do, and for the SENA it is an issue that attracts the attention of so
many people. In the national scenario we have connections with the industries,
the employees, and the academy.
But this is
a big institution and the networks that work in a school, not necessarily work
in all the schools. The Centro de Materiales y Ensayos CME where I work is
located in Bogota, and the majority of the programs that we have are related
with the industry, such as welding, jewelry, material testing, polymers and
software programming, therefore must of the collaboration is aimed to support
the industry in the city of Bogotá. All this networking is done specially in
the south part of the city, and with companies located in specific zones
according to the specialization, so for example, most of the jewelry partnerships
related to emeralds and precious stones are focused in a town called Muzo and
its surroundings where we find the biggest market for that kind of product.
But what
exactly are these kinds of networks about, the objective of the relationship
with the companies is to know the necessities of the industry so we can provide
more appropriated programs, to know the new technologies and challenges of the industry
with the purpose of implementing them in the programs taught at SENA. They also
pretend to offer the courses given by SENA in order to provide training to the
employees, but additionally to accomplish the goals determined by the general
direction. The other purpose is the inclusion of our students in the labor
life, so the contact with the managers of companies is very essential to complete
the learning process in their practical stage.
Sometimes the
contact with the representatives of the companies is done directly between the
instructors and the company personnel, but the majority of the times are the
SENA coordinators and the leaders of the programs are the ones who go and
contact them.
There is
also another way to contact the industries and is through the so called “mesas
sectoriales” which are the official meetings between the representatives of the
economic sectors, the government, and the representatives of academic society.
The objective of those meetings is to agree the politics concerning to the
training and qualification of the human resources and the decisions of what is
pertinent in education according to the needs of every sector. Unfortunately the
participation of those meeting is limited, but it also includes the
participation of instructors.
Taking this
information we can analyze that the relationship between the educational
institutions like SENA and the industries and the companies that are affected
with the training of the centers is close but it is limited to just some
specific people and not everybody can participate actively.
But the
information and the decisions of those networks cannot stay on the official
meetings, thus, there is another form of network inside the center and is
through the program teams. The teams are formed by the instructors who teach in
the same area, they are the experts of an specific area and they are the ones
who can take clearer decisions on the aspects that may affect their teaching responsibility.
There is also a person who is the leader of every team, he is the one in charge
of transferring the information from the teams to the director of the center, and
this person also belongs to the pedagogical team. The pedagogical team is a
relatively new figure, and is formed by the director of the center, the
coordinators (academic, administrative and complementary courses), the leaders
of the different teams, and some representatives of the administrative group. They
have meeting every Tuesday and discuss about the different issues that are
taking place in the center.
The
structure is interesting and it works in some levels, although sometimes the
information stays in the meetings and is not transferred to the majority of the
groups, for example, in the area groups an advantage is that the people
involved in the groups belong to a same field of knowledge and it permits them
to speak in a common language, the meetings that they have are specially to
discuss the planning of the trimester activities, and the projects to be
performed by the students during the trimester. Unfortunately the opportunities
to meet are few due to the tight institutional schedule, so the complete teams
usually meet just twice or three times a year, and this could be considered too
few.
It is also common
to hear that after the meetings some teachers decide to ignore the proposals of
their coworkers and go to class to continue doing what they always do, that is
something that is very difficult to change because of the organizational structure,
and also the independence that every teacher has, so the only thing to be done
in a case like that is to trust in the team and hope that their compromise become
more important than their own precepts. On the other hand we have witnessed
some very successful experiences where the instructors have come to agreements
that have transformed the learning of their students, one of those examples is
the team of software programming that after some meetings transformed a disorganized
and sometimes incoherent structure into a more unified and clearer organization
of the program and the projects proposed among it. To understand it, is necessary
to know that the program is proposed nationwide and the same structure is
presented in different regions, but the projects that are tied to the program
used to be proposed for every instructor each trimester, it caused that for the
same program the students had 5 or 6 different approaches, and the results were
totally different. When they analyzed the situation, the problem was not the
diversity, but the unnecessary spend of resources and time, and in some cases
the low level of the students at the end of the process. So they decided to
discuss and agree on a new common structure for their program projects, and
after experience it for a period of time, they met again to analyze the results
and make the corresponding changes. That was a very fruitful process and an
example for the rest of the groups that it was possible to work as a real team
and have real changes.
Another aspect
to be improved in this level of networking is the retention of the information,
especially from the pedagogical teal to the instructors; even though the
pedagogical team has weekly gatherings, no information is published and the
rest of the instructors ignore what is going on those meetings. That is a
concern, because it seems that the efforts that they might be doing inside the
pedagogical team could be eventually lost due to the lack of communication with
the rest of the teachers.
But the
networking must be done not only with the companies and the coworkers, there is
a group that is directly affected with our actions and is the community in
general, and I think that it is one of the weakest points in our center, even
though there are some spaces created like fairs where we present the programs available
to the public, no other actions take place with the community.
Therefore
the challenges in terms of networking are opened, even more when there is no a
complete creating of networks between technical teachers and the teachers of
the transversal areas like math, communication, ethics and English, that are
involved with all the different groups programs that the center offers. We are
constantly in contact with the teachers of the different areas, but our work is
escencially support the programs that they lead, I think that there is more to
do in terms of agrrement with the instructors, athe companies and the
community.
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