Knowledge, training and development: an overview

COLIN KIRKPATRICK* and PETE MANN

IDPM, University of Manchester, UK

`Most of the di�culties that developing countries face involve both knowledge gapsand information problems . . . Development institutions have three roles in reducingknowledge gaps: to provide international public goods, to act as intermediaries in thetransfer of knowledge, and to manage the rapidly growing body of knowledge aboutdevelopment' (World Bank, 1998).

`Training is one of the twin pillars on which an integrated human resourcedevelopment strategy must be based . . . Training can be de®ned as the systematicpreparation of individuals to improve their capacity to perform market and sociallyvalued functions, i.e. it comprises the full continuum of education, skill formationprocesses and training activities' (ILO, 1998).

The growing recognition of the central part played by education and training in thedevelopment process is re¯ected in the selection by two major international organiza-tions of knowledge transfer as the central theme for their 1998 Annual Reports. Forthe World Bank, unequal access to knowledge across and within countries is seen asan important source of economic inequality and poverty. For the ILO, education andskills generation are not only vital ingredients in making economies more inter-nationally competitive and productive, but also serve to mitigate social and economicvulnerability. Clearly, to meet these changing demands, knowledge-based traininginstitutions must be responsive and adaptable if they are to act as e�ective vehicles forthe generation, transfer and di�usion of new knowledge and skills.

Training in generalÐnot just for developmentÐhas changed signi®cantly in thepast decade. With the greater awareness of the requirement for trained personnel,more organizations are investing larger amounts in the development of their humanresources. The profession of training has seen its credibility rise. Much of this changehas been demand-oriented; the interests of the `client' have shaped the trainingagenda in its objectives, structure and content. Unlike in the past when trainingtended to be much more supply-driven, organizations are specifying more what theywantÐand expecting it to be available. This is certainly the case for developmenttraining, which is increasingly being provided on a customized basis, tailored to meetclients' expectations and needs.

Another client-related feature of current training provision is the closer linkagebetween working in the organization and learning on the course. The need for furtherintegration between working and learning is not simply a geographical issue ofproximity between the point of performance and the place of learning. The issue is

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*Correspondence to: Colin Kirkpatrick, IDPM, University of Manchester, Crawford House, PrecinctCentre, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9GH, UK.

more sophisticated than this and concerns the degree to which systemic socialconnection can be established in the di�erent cultural environments of producing andthinking about production. Simply moving training in-country, for example, will notalter its traditional autonomy from production and therefore will not bridge thefundamental divide between the two logics. The cultural factors within social systemswhich block work from becoming `learningful' and which prevent learning frombecoming action in the workplace are not transcended simply by alternating the twoseparate logics of production and training. Integrating purposeful learning withinwork requires something more than simply juxtaposing the two activities.

A third shift in the pattern of training has been the attempt to increase theinvolvement of learners in the process of their development. This trend towardslearners having greater ownership of the content of the training and the instrumentsthrough which they acquire and assimilate knowledge is consistent with the increasedattention being given by trainers to client needs in the selection of the mode andmedium of training delivery.

The UK development studies sector has a long-established international reputationfor the generation and transfer of knowledge and ideas about development, throughits research, education and training activities. With the greater emphasis in theinternational development community generally, and in the donor organizations inparticular, on the importance of knowledge and ideas as a factor in development, theUK development institutions involved in these activities are currently presented withthe challenge of responding to the new priorities and rea�rming their capacity forgenerating and disseminating new development knowledge and practice. It was theseconsiderations that motivated the selection of `Development Training' as the themefor the 1998 Conference of the Director of Special Courses (CDSC), which wasorganized and hosted by the Institute for the Development Policy and Management(IDPM) at the University of Manchester. The annual conference is the main UKforum for the discussion of development training policy and practice and bringstogether all the major UK university-based development training providers. Thecontributions to this special issue of Public Administration and Development have beenselected from a larger number of papers presented to the 1998 conference andtogether they demonstrate a wide range and diversity of development training philo-sophy, methodology and practice.

The contribution by Vinod Thomas examines the implications for developmentlearning and training in the context of the ongoing process of globalization. As globalneeds for knowledge increase, the role of development educators increasinglybecomes one of understanding the dynamics of the learning process and disseminat-ing best practice knowledge and information. The development learning institutionscan assist in this process by forging new partnerships with client institutions, exploit-ing new knowledge transfer technology to expand the reach of the programmes, whileat the same time remaining closely attuned to client needs and requirements.

The next two articles by Paul Mosley and Joseph Mullen both examine the partwhich training plays in the new development aid priorities of the UK and Australiangovernments. Paul Mosley examines the implications for training of the new emphasisin the UK's aid programme on poverty reduction. He notes that training activitiesaccounted for some 22% of the dominant technical assistance component of theDAD aid budget in 1996, and hence 12% of the bilateral aid programme overall.However, there has been very little assessment of the e�ectiveness of this training,

2 C. Kirkpatrick and P. Mann

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either in terms of the impact of training on on-the-job performance or on institutionalcapacity building. The ful®lment of the White Paper's objectives will require arecasting of its evaluation e�ort, not just towards training, but across the entirespectrum of development assistance.

Joseph Mullen contrasts the almost complete absence of training from the DFIDWhite Paper with the 1997 Australian government's Review of development assist-ance. The Australian Review also has poverty reduction as its central concern, but incontrast to the DFID White Paper, discusses the role of development training inconsiderable detail. The Review argues that a change in the focus of the education andtraining component of Australian aid should be redirected towards poverty reduction,by giving greater priority to in-country education, shifting from higher education toinclude more technical and vocational training.

Peter Fell and Colin Jacobs also discuss the implications of changing aid prioritiesfor development training. They argue that the switch from project aid towards pro-gramme and sectoral assistance requires new skills and HRD e�orts, and they thenreview recent trends deriving from donor approaches to training and how these can betranslated into practice.

Tom Franks explores the meaning of capacity building and capability and betweencapacity building and institutional development. The place of the enabling environ-ment and the emphasis on continuous learning skills also attract his attention.

The context of the paper by McCourt and Sola and the article by Taylor isin-country training for local government in Tanzania. The former portrays a trainingprogramme designed for a role that is central to achieving administrative reform,along with the complex institutional arrangements surrounding it. The latter accountsfor an initiative to in¯uence skills and attitudes of local councillors learning `goodgovernance'.

Philip Dearden and colleagues report on the development of an experiential casestudy cum role play used to learn about participation. They trace the evolution of theconcept of and rationale for participation in development, as well as detail the phasesof their training exercise. Their article concludes with reference both to new profes-sionalism and to experiential learning.

Pete Mann completes the special issue by questioning the balance between purpose,approach and focus in development training. Conceptualizing the developmenttrainer's task as strengthening the ability to practice, he uncovers behind each of thethree elements above in development training a core concept that can inform itsdesign so that learning becomes more developmental.

REFERENCES

ILO (1998). World Employment Report 1998±99, Employability in the Global Economy: HowTraining Matters, International Labour O�ce, Geneva.

World Bank (1998). World Development Report 1998, Knowledge for Development, WorldBank, Washington, DC.

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