Educational Department (IAN Telecentar)

Important factor in further economic development of our region is acquiring knowledge and skills needed in the modern economy and society. Unfortunately, the existing education system cannot adequately meet these needs and the gap between the requests of the labour market on the one side and skills that individuals have on the other side grows bigger every day. This gap is especially large with groups who are vulnerable and outside the mainstream of the society - refugees and displaced persons, Roma, unemployed, minority groups, people living with HIV, disabled persons, etc. This makes these groups even more marginalised and isolated from the society.

The aim of Telecentar is to develop competencies required for active participation in the knowledge economy, for finding a new/better job and adjustment to the needs of labour market, through:

• promotion of lifelong learning as a development tool for all citizens
• stimulation of social inclusion of marginalised groups in the lifelong learning process
• searching for the best teaching and learning practices worldwide
• adoption of the highest standards of the knowledge society
• development and implementation of the programme according to labour market demands

Many people from vulnerable groups have no means for participation in education processes, by which they are even more excluded from the mainstreams of their society. They cannot find (better) jobs because they have no adequate knowledge needed in the modern economy:

• computer knowledge
• knowledge of English Language
• Social skills
• Entrepreneurship skills

Memberships

IAN Telecentar is a member of:

• European Computer Driving Licence foundation and authorised test centre for issuing internationally recognised ECDL and ECDL Advanced certificates,
• TOEIC® - Test of English for International Communication™
• Section of the foreign language schools of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and distributor of the European Language Portfolio
• Telecentre Europena Network
• Global Knowledge Partnership Network
• Balkan Network of Telecentars that has centres in Serbia (Belgrade and Novi Sad), Croatia (Zagreb and Slavonski Brod), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Travnik and Prijedor) and Macedonia (Gostivar). Telecentars are focused on promotion, development and provision of services that help beneficiaries and partners to adopt the highest standards f the information society.

In 2006 IAN Telecentar got a prestigious Microsoft Award of Excellence for the results achieved in implementation of humanitarian programs.

Results

Over 2500 beneficiaries completed our free of charge education programs so far.

Evaluation

Within the education programs IAN also conducts a comprehensive evaluation. The results of courses evaluation show high level of satisfaction of our beneficiaries with the training they attended (average mark for al courses on the scale from 1 to 5 is 4,7).

Second level of evaluation is testing of the psychological status of the education programs participants at the beginning and at the end of the program. The results show that after longer attendance of educational programs (minimum 3 months) participants have:

• General improvement of the psychological status
• Decreased level of emotional instability and destructive aggression
• Raised level of conscientiousness
• Decreased tendency to blame others and unfavourable circumstances for personal difficulties, participants show tendency to take over the responsibility for own future
• Most significant changes have been registered in the way participants perceive their own competences, before all professional. They feel considerably more competent and capable in the professional sense.

Positive change is not limited only to general psychological status. Participants show much higher degree of intention for engagement in job search, than before attending the program. They believe that business opportunities for them exist, that loss of a job may be a chance for advancement not exclusively a personal catastrophe, that their future mostly depends on themselves and that they have enough qualities to influence the decision of their future employers.

Finally, the most important result is that the participants have more chances for finding a new/better job after completing our education programs. In some programs percentage of beneficiaries who found jobs three months after the completion of the program goes up to 50%.

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