COMPETENCY BASED TRAINING IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Recent developments. Some experiences. January, 2003

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The Brazilian Foundation of Welding Work (FBTS) and certification with international technical norms

The FBTS was set up by a number of private companies that were using welding services and wished to improve their quality through the "National System of Qualification and Certification of Welding Inspectors". The objective of the system is to "regulate the requirements, criteria and systems for the qualification and certification of welding inspectors, based on the needs of the different industrial sectors".

The FBTS has organized a system of certification by third parties in which an overall authority, the qualification council, is in charge of formulating the operational norms of the system, a qualification and certification office is in charge of running it, and a number of qualification examination centers give the theoretical and practical tests that lead to the award of certificates. The Brazilian national standardization body, the National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Quality (INMETRO), has accredited the FBTS as a personnel certification organization.

ORGANIZATION OF THE FBTS SYSTEM OF QUALIFICATION AND CERTIFICATION OF WELDING INSPECTORS

The sectorial commissions are purely consultative bodies linked to specific activities of interest for certification, such as the definition of qualification needs. The evaluation centers require accreditation as such from the qualification and certification office. In this way, once evaluation has been satisfactorily presented in line with the norms established by the FTBS, certification can be awarded, and it remains valid for five years.

One of the evaluation centers in Rio de Janeiro is the SENAI Training Center, which specializes in welding. This is an example of how alliances are made between training bodies, and these in turn render evaluation services. These are audited by the certifying body to accredit them in their capacity as evaluators.

Even though this certification system does not define itself as a competencies system, a detailed analysis of the norms shows that it is basically competencies of a technical nature that are required in order to pass the evaluation tests.

The majority of the theoretical and practical areas tested correspond to international norms for specific subjects like oil pipelines, gas pipelines, storage tanks, metal structures, etc. In this case, international standardization makes it easy to have criteria both for the preparation of training programs and for the evaluation of competencies.

TheHospitality Institute in Brazil. An experience of standardization and competency certification for the tourism sector

This institute, whose headquarters is in Salvador in the State of Bahia, is developing a program of certification of vocational quality in the tourism sector in association with other national and international institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank. This experience aims at generating labour competency norms which will facilitate the design of programs and worker competency evaluation and certification in the sector9.

One of the main components of the program is the setting up of the Brazilian System of Certification of Vocational Quality in the Tourism Sector, which will allow the evaluation, development and certification of labour competency so as to improve service quality and increase competitiveness in the sector. Companies, workers and government representatives are all involved in the process of setting and validating the competency norms in question. In the preparation stage, the program submitted these competency norms to public consultation, and now it even publishes them on its web site.

Objective of the certification program in the tourism sector: Implementation of the Brazilian system for the certification of vocational quality for the tourism sector in a way that is representative, voluntary, and legitimated by the key actors in the various interested segments.

 

Program of Vocational Quality Certification for the Tourism Sector

Beneficiaries of the program	* Professionals: the possibility of recognition of their competencies, self development and professsional advancement.
	* Enterprises: confirmation of the standard of quality, and increased credibility.
	* Clients: the prospect of a quality service.
	* Educational System: the utilization of model curriculums, feedback and the results of evaluation processes.
	* Society: raised awareness of the importance of quality

IDB-SEBRAE - Instituto de Hospitalidade

Some results achieved by the program:

Full functioning of the National Certification Council and of the five technical commissions, which are Norms, Curriculums and Propagators, Evaluation and Certification, Food Safety, and Research).

Definition of methodologies for:

Components of the system of norms: Component I -Evaluation of vocational development needs of the sector Component II - National system of norms and certification Component III - Preparation of model curriculums and training of propagators Component IV - Promotion and marketing

a) Preparation of norms,
b) Preparation of model curriculums;
c) Training of propagators and evaluators
d) Evaluation of candidates for certification

136 companies and government, worker and educational organizations are directly involved.

The conduct of research into the profile of professionals in the tourism sector, the offer of training in the sector, the demand for training in the sector, the study of occupations so as to establish 50 priority occupations for the preparation of competency norms.

 

 

 

 

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9. Complete information on this program can be found at www.hospitalidade.org.br

 

 

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