Latest news with #RecognitionofPriorLearning
The Print
a day ago
- Business
- The Print
RLD to strengthen presence at grassroots level in Rajasthan: Party chief Jayant Chaudhary
'Our aim is to build a strong organisation by reaching every village and town. We will open Jan Sunwai (public hearing) centres in these areas to engage directly with people,' he said. Speaking at a party programme here, Chaudhary said the RLD will continue to fight for the rights of farmers, youngsters and marginalised communities, following the ideals of Chaudhary Charan Singh. Jaipur, Jul 11 (PTI) Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) president Jayant Chaudhary on Friday laid out the party's goal of strengthening its presence at the grassroots level in Rajasthan, with a particular focus on youngsters. The Union minister pointed out that many helpful schemes fail to reach the underprivileged sections of the society. 'The RLD will work to make sure that these schemes reach those who need them the most,' he added. Chaudhary also discussed the BJP-led Centre's agricultural policies and confirmed that the RLD would take an active role in implementing those at the grassroots level. 'Farmers will play a key role in the next state election,' he asserted. The RLD is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance. The party's state president, Joginder Singh Awana, said large rallies will be held in each division of Rajasthan and later, at the tehsil level. During his Jaipur visit, Chaudhary, the Union minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship, also inaugurated a state-of-the-art skill centre at the Chaudhary Charan Singh National Institute of Agricultural Marketing. The new facility has been designed as a specialised centre for practical training in areas such as agri-business management, warehouse operations, value-chain development and digital agriculture. The primary objective of the centre is to empower the next generation of agri-entrepreneurs, cooperatives and marketing professionals by providing them with essential skills and training. Addressing the gathering, Chaudhary highlighted the importance of recognising and empowering the existing workforce. He also honoured certified trainees under the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) programme, which is being implemented in collaboration with the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA). The minister also planted a sapling at the Agriculture Entrepreneurship Garden. Later in the day, he inaugurated the second phase of the 'Chaudhary Charan Singh Family Forestry Mission' in Nehata gram panchayat in Jaipur Rural. The mission aims to plant 1.25 crore saplings by 2027 and establish 125 'Smriti Vans' across the country. In a single day, more than one lakh saplings were planted across 500 locations in Rajasthan, making it one of the largest community-driven green campaigns in the state. 'This mission is not just about planting trees. It is about connecting Chaudhary Charan Singh's farmer-friendly ideology with climate justice and family responsibility,' the RLD chief said. PTI SDA RC This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.
Irish Times
29-04-2025
- General
- Irish Times
Lifelong learning: ‘It's been completely transformative for me, really life-affirming'
There are plenty of reasons why people who are well past school-leaving age take third-level courses, says Dr Ciara Staunton, pointing to those she delivers in the area of forensic psychology. 'One course I run is eight weeks long and always full because there are always people fascinated with crime,' she says. 'It has nothing to do with their work. It has nothing to do with anything. It's purely they love a podcast, a TV programme, and the course is a step up from that.' Staunton also runs a diploma course, a two-year part-time programme, but in this case she says every student who takes it 'is a professional working in criminal justice or one of the allied services and they're doing this for professional purposes because it's part of their remit'. 'So there are all sorts of seasons for participating in lifelong learning,' she says. 'People who want to upskill and reskill, people who have moved into a management space but don't have the qualification or who never went to college but have always had that hankering.' READ MORE Staunton is the project director at the national Recognition of Prior Learning in higher education project and is working on an assessment of a recently completed five-year programme intended to enable would-be students to have more account taken of their work or life experience when applying for or participating in courses. The range of that experience can be broad and individuals and institutions alike have traditionally struggled to quantify or properly value it. Sometimes, she suggests, people take a course in what is very much their own area of expertise for the formal qualification or the self-confidence it offers. Fashion consultant and events organiser Fiona Hayes is an example of this. Self-employment, she says, 'can be a very lonely place and I don't know whether this is endemic among women in their 40s, which is a really tricky stage, but I've certainly found myself questioning my ability at times'. The public side of her work, Hayes says, for a long time included a regular slot on daytime TV, which might seem anything but solitary. Yet, she adds, much of the daily routine is far more insular and studying at the University of Limerick (UL) has been has been hugely beneficial personally and professionally. On the face it, opting to do a professional diploma in public relations and communications might be taken for studying what she already knew, but Hayes says the experience has been 'completely transformative for me, really life-affirming'. 'Originally the decision was partly to do with the fact I'd never got a degree and so I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder, but I didn't know whether I'd be able to negotiate a master's but it's been an eye-opener,' she says. 'The course is delivered in a way that takes account of the fact most people are working, there is flexibility around the delivery of assignments and the network of people I've connected with is really worthwhile. And the content is very relevant to me, I'm already applying things I'm learning to my work, thinking more strategically about the things that I do.' Hayes, who is progressing towards the master's by way of shorter diploma courses, was one of the speakers at UL's recent Transforming Higher Education conference, which also heard the story of Diego Silva, a Brazilian with a background in engineering who was working until recently as a night porter while getting the Irish qualifications required to resume his professional career. These, say people involved in the sector, are the sorts stories that are going to get more common as lifelong learning becomes intertwined with career evolution. A greater need for people to retrain seems inevitable given the scale of change coming to many workplaces. A UN-backed report published this month suggests up to 40 per cent of global jobs will be affected by technological change, most obviously artificial intelligence , in the coming years, with 33 per cent of roles in countries such as Ireland said to be exposed to automation. The scale of it all has prompted an array of educational initiatives intended to facilitate upskilling and reskilling through shorter and more flexibly structured courses, with a view to recognising experience and, in some cases, offering significant funding to help with fees. However, the proportion of people involved remains relatively modest. The numbers aged over 24 starting a full degree course in recent years have declined significantly, with the scale of the demands involved seen as off-putting by many. Similar figures for postgraduate courses jumped by more than 20 per cent to nearly 40,000 during the Covid-19 pandemic, and have remained high since. There has also been a growing emphasis on shorter, specialised courses packaged as building blocks to more prestigious qualifications. What once might have been a certificate course is now a micro-credential, or 'microcred', a key part of a developing strategy to facilitate largely career-related learning. There are about 500 course options in colleges involved in the Irish Universities Association 's initiative, many of them in the business and technology areas but with far more options around the country. Student feedback tends to be very positive, although the cost, at anything between €250 and €2,000, can be pretty substantial. 'A very high volume are employer-sponsored,' says Orla Bannon, head of careers and development at Trinity College Dublin, where more than 1,000 people have completed microcreds in recent years. 'Employers are encouraging people to do the courses in the way they have always encouraged people to do, say, aMBA. Microcredentials are now included in a lot of those portfolios, which is great.' More needs to be done, employer representatives say, and help is needed to pay for it. 'There has been a huge investment by employers into the National Training Fund and it's at times like these we should see that investment coming back through into the workforce,' says Maeve McElwee, executive director of employer relations at Ibec. 'AI is going to have a huge impact over the next two to three years, it isn't five to 10 years away, it's much closer. This is the time now that we should be looking at how we can upskill and reskill, both in the traditional skills and also in AI literacy.'
