Legacy education and training is a growing market. Barbara Hadley of Iskaboo asked Ben Baker of IRLA and Carolyn Fahey of AIRROC how they define ‘training’ and ‘education’ in the context of their respective associations.
‘To the IRLA Academy, training and education go hand in hand depending on what needs to be achieved,’ says Baker. ‘Training is aimed at developing a new, or existing skill. Therefore, in IRLA terms, it is important that any training provided is relevant and of high quality.’
‘Education has a wider remit. It is a process of building upon existing knowledge and experience,’ he adds. ‘For example, IRLA has arranged a presentation on cyber risk. This is designed to bring members up to date with current thinking, how this emerging risk is approached and what the future might bring.
For Fahey, ‘education is about conveying knowledge. Providing opportunities to learn about areas that you might not know anything about or deepening understanding of an issue that you might have heard about but aren’t expert in. Training, to me, is providing skills to DO something. Negotiate a commutation, settle a dispute, conduct an effective audit, interpret a balance sheet, or understand an actuarial projection.
‘One of AIRROC’s goals is to provide a balance of both education and training to our industry,’ says Fahey. ‘Nearly every event we offer will have a mixture of current topics, issues, and challenges that our industry faces each day, coupled with sessions designed to offer concrete takeaways for our audiences. Knowledge that they can “tuck away” for later, and skills that they can utilise to implement change in their daily work right away.’ So how do they identify and select those topics and issues which are important and of value to prospective attendees?’
And what are the key learning objectives?
‘The Academy identifies topics from the requests and needs of the membership,’ Baker stresses. ‘It is fundamental that IRLA provides topics on relevant matters, be they regulatory, technical or legacy related issues, or on a current subject, for example, cyber risk or M&A. ‘The key learning objective is that whatever we deliver from the Academy, it must add to the members’ knowledge and they must be able to use this new knowledge when they return to their offices.’
Fahey also sees her members’ input as crucial: ‘AIRROC has a very active Education Committee made up of representatives from AIRROC member companies. They do a fantastic job of generating ideas for session topics and identifying speakers of interest. I view them as one of AIRROC’s greatest resources for formulating terrific and engaging conferences.’
How about the rising number of young, highly educated professionals who are now streaming into the industry?
IRLA has a very active Young Professionals Group, Baker points out, whose membership is growing. YPG and the Academy both provide opportunities to network and benefit from the programmes provided.
For the full article, refer to page 26 in the Spring 2017 issue. https://www.airroc.org/assets/docs/matters/AIRROC%20Matters%20Spring%202017%20No%2013%20Vol%201.pdf
