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Good practice Hungary: learning culture

Page history last edited by Randolph Preisinger-Kleine 12 years, 3 months ago

Dr. Kleisz Teréz

University of Pecs

 


 

 

CORE QUALITY CRITERIA: CULTURE OF LEARNING

Main aspects important for quality assurance in the case of a specific quality area (i.e. culture of learning)

INDICATORS
(CORE AND ADDITIONAL/DESCRIPTORS)

What might indicate quality in the partnership?

 

EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT INDICATORS

What evidence is available to support the inclusion of the indicators?

 

Examples of good practice from case study: Pecs Learning City and Region
Learning-based strategy to be mainstreamed into integrated local and regional development strategies. Inclusion of learning as a key element to respond creatively to the forces of change

Capacity-centered learning provision, flexible ways and opportunities for transformative experiences of citizens and organizations.

 

Formal, non-formal and informal learning for social, economic, cultural, political and personal development

 

Enhancement of people's ability to work cooperatively together to understand and overcome their problems

 

 

Embedding concepts of widening access and LLL in strategy documents

 

 

Content of learning covers a vast array of subject areas.

Learning is situated in diverse places generated by the partnership according to identified needs

 

 

 

Opening a wine road and opening minds   – embedded learning in a complex rural development project

 

From the point of view of individual development, the  Hungarian Villány-Siklós   Wine Region has provided individuals with opportunities to extend their learning, develop new skills, achieve social and economic goals,and pursue pathways that might not have been previously available to them. The story of the Villány area is special down to the visionary leadership of a few local producers.  A new pathway in wine prodution was developed and followed by other wine producers.

 

The difficult situation immediately after the political changes – high  unemployment,  dismantling  of former companies,  privatization, lack of capital, lack of  the necessary skills in marketing, hospitality, and the knowledge-deficit  of modern technologies in wine-making - forced many producers to start over. Over the two decades , they have achieved considerable  success. A network  has been created which has taken the form of a civic association. The Villány-Siklós Wine Route Association was the first wine route in Hungary, following European models.

 

Mayors have also been instrumental in the creation of the wine road because they wanted to find solutions to the unemployment problems at the beginning of the nineties. Other stakeholders like civic and state organizations, researchers and tourist experts were gradually evolved into the process of  building and shaping the wine road. An ambitious county politician, the chairman of the county assembly was also instrumental in setting up the wine road.  He was looking for options to dynamize the economy. It was he, who initiated a study tour to Austria, Germany and France for the Villány winemakers and their wives and researchers and tourist experts to study the wine roads in Rajna-Pfalz, Alsace and Burgerland.

 

The study tour worked as a kick-off workshop  and collaborative  efforts started with the help of the EU Phare program which announced bottom up local development opportunities for local communities called Intercommunal Cooperation with the aim to form a local economic development program and local cooperation among different stakeholders. This ICC project provided funding for the first training sessions about the wine road. It also offered interest-free loans as a form of capital support for the entrepreneurs.

 

The ICC Phare project within the newly established wine road started with a series of workshops to prepare people for the tourism and hospitality-related tasks.  Interactive learning has generated a lot of enthusiasm among participants. The preferred and effective ways were discussion forums where not the trainers but the participants tried to convince each other about the right directions, how rural tourism should be done.  Now the Association has got almost one hundred members, who provide 70 qualified services to the residents and visitors of  17 villages and towns. 

 

„Walking a brand new path, we  cooperated …..we protected quality….  We taught wine tourism, because it had been non-existent in Hungary! ….we thought on the micro-regional scale, although we were not categorised into the same “labour market catchment area”, we obsessively educated the new, civilised consumers of wine… we wrote applications and won grants, and employed a large number of volunteers. In one word: we had a belief in Villány, we believed in the people living here and we also believed in wine!” 

 

Important characteristics of the Wine Road are the internal modes of communication, the transfer of experience and the learning system. Based on their own experiences they realized that the Wine Road was not for managing the daily tourism business, it had to be left for the entrepreneurs.    The Wine Road had to be the platform for meetings and talks, a sort of discussion forum, where the members together could chew over what would be good for the region and what would not.

 

"... We need this Association because it has meetings, events, open days, when members can visit each other in their cellars. The association has to be the venue for discussions, sharing ideas, further planning and an exchange of experiences. What is beyond that is the responsibility of the individuals. I do not expect anything further from the Association.  The Association would neither solve my problems, nor bring my successes. Everyone is the blacksmith of his own success. "

(E. Tiffán wine-maker).

 

Perhaps the wine road is different from many Western European and New World wine roads because of its diverse membership, who have an interest in the appearance of wine tourism. Thus, besides winemakers and local governments others, like Duna-Dráva National Park, or Friends of the Siklós Castle  or the Statue Park of Villány are also members of the Association. There are also tourism professionals, journalists, all together a mixed and colorful membership. (From a case study of Dezső Kovács)

 

http://villanyiborvidek.hu

 

Learning gaps are documented and related with the quality system

Exploration of diverse learning needs, analysis of barriers and learning failures and innovative ways of improving skills and knowledge

 

Focus on issues related to the access of groups with disadvantaged backgrounds and documentation of their specific learning needs.

Development and use of specific audit tools of work and citizenship needs (local/regional level)

 

Specific methodologies/tools for identification of learning gaps explicitly defined and used.

 

Review of specific disadvantaged groups needs reflected in the regular assessment of the learning region partnership.

 

 

Mural Moral : a community planning  and empowering method, building  and linking different social groups  -  especially young people  -  through joint painting of huge outdoor walls or blanket posters that give them chances to express their needs and values, visions for the future.

 

Group discussions and workshops precede the final community painting about issues that matter to them, who  they are , what dreams they are having, what would they like to happen in their personal and community life.  The method comes from Nicaragua and it was succesfully adapted by civic activists in Pécs. The approach is very succesful in working  with people with less verbal capabilities and offering them the chance to express their thoughts visually. Pécs suburban disadvantaged youth groups and young prisoners constituted the group members involved in this method so far and a civic association was formed in 2010 to expand this activity, i.e to form learning communities.

 

http://www.muralmoral.hu/http:/www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkJKLdHw7hM

 

Reaching out non-traditional learners. In Pécs several cultural centres and libraries run computer learning courses for senior citizens that end up in generating self-teaching communities and social circles. The activity utilizes the effects of a nationwide programme „Click On It Grandma!”  developed by Budapest Cultural Center (BCC) originally in 2002.  BCC provided an educational methodology and a PC/Internet curriculum targeted to meet the needs of the elderly and has also established good relations with all local cultural and community centres nationwide.

 

For practice purposes, each site provides internet access points free of charge for the participants during and after the courses. Participants learn step by step about computers and the internet in general, how to find relevant and useful information on the web, how to send emails and use chatrooms, forums, discussion groups, share pictures etc. Practical courses provide a solid base of knowledge and skills that can be deepened by further practice. For this purpose, the sites of the courses (cultural and community centers, libraries, telehouses) provide internet access points free of charge during and after the courses.

 

 

 

 

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