Are we Educators or Trainers?

A recent article from SHP online (linked to at the end of this article) raises a number of interesting points, which should be recognised by many trainers, covering Health and Safety as well as other subjects.

Amongst other issues in the article the question is asked, at what point does education become training? Could it be said that all training is education, but that not all education is training or more simply are the two things entirely different?

The author Ian Pemberton argues well that the training that goes on today is too heavily based on education (theory based work) and not enough on practical workplace-based learning. His theory is that because of the requirements laid down by national agencies and governing bodies, the courses available have too large a content based on theory, telling people why they need to know something and not enough time telling them how to actually do it safely.

He then takes this one stage further by suggesting that instead of subject-based training we should be offering job- or task-based training. The reasoning behind this being that if we were to train in a job situation we could cover all the safety aspects relating to that job in one go rather than the worker doing one course one day on one subject and then another course the next and so on. Removing all but the very basic theory aspects would allow us then to concentrate the training to suit the person and the client, not the trainer.

While we're not being one hundred percent in agreement with all these principles, the application of the theories would seem to be problematic, the overall principal is something we at C&D would wholeheartedly agree with. Indeed, our mantra “Training when the client wants it, not when the trainer wants it” is testament to our belief that this is the way forward. Couple to this the movement by our trainers towards a more hands-on experiential based approach to training and you can see that in many ways we have already adopted some of these principals. Just how far do we take them?

This is a brief synopsis and discussion of a much more detailed piece which is well worth reading by all professional health and safety trainers. Here is the link to the article:

http://www.shponline.co.uk/getting-health-safety-training/