I work for a very large corporation. We have had long
conversations about the issues of 'education' vs 'training'.
We have also struggled over the issues of who we should
count as our customer. As I recall our most recent ideas,
we identified three customers, each with different agendas
(i.e., quality criteria).
We have the student/learner who actually attends a course,
or receives tutoring, or whatever. They generally want
some concrete skills to help them do their jobs (training?).
And they do -not- want to suffer through getting them.
We have the supervisors who must then strive to apply those
newly-acquired skills to some sort of value-adding activity
for the benefit of the organization. They generally want
to try to 'fit those new skills into someone' to make a
more complete resource to apply to tasks at hand.
We have the manager of the supervisor who likely has
accountability for the budget which pays for the 'learning
opportunity'. That person genuinely wants lowest cost.
Does this have any parallels elsewhere?
-- Michael Ayers mbayers@mmm.com (612) 733-5690 FAX (612) 737-7718 IT Education Svcs/3M Center 224-2NE-02/PO Box 33224/St Paul MN 55133-3224 All ideas expressed in this note represent the author's thinking and do not represent the positions of any organizations -- or -- I take credit for the implications, you do for the inferences!