Press room

The In-Company Training Area at the UOC’s International Graduate Institute and the lecturers from the Economics and Business Studies Department, Joan Torrent and Pilar Ficapal (the programme’s Academic Directors), have designed the training and programmes to be offered in accordance with strict academic quality standards and bearing in mind the current context of crisis and constant change. The training is to be developed in line with the UOC’s educational model. This model ensures that students acquire specific skills-based knowledge, with particular educational value coming from its focus on acquiring skills in the field of ICTs.

In total, the unemployed can sign up for one of the 472 e-learning courses to be developed until December 2009. Each monthly instalment includes 59 different courses. The first courses began this June, following a pilot test in May with highly satisfactory results. If students successfully complete the course, the UOC will issue them with an academic certificate accrediting the knowledge acquired.

The training programmes are to develop two kinds of basic skills. The first group involves transferable skills such as digital, language, professional and job searching skills. The second group is linked to professional skills, such as logistics and operations, social and healthcare activities, information and communication management, and tourism.

In the press conference to present the project, the University’s President, Imma Tubella, stressed that “an initiative such as this is a good example of the links between university and society”. She added that “it is very important that we open the doors to training and lifelong learning. Experiences like the courses on offer highlight the importance of the training process and the need for constant updating”.

Indeed, with the aim of offering a service such as this to society as a whole and to strengthen this aspect of its public service, the UOC is to start up a Training Office for Employability as of the upcoming academic year which is to encompass a wide range of activities and proposals for collaboration and training for the production sector (companies and individuals) in Catalonia. The objective is twofold: one, to offer training to increase people’s employability (from the unemployed to professional guilds, etc.), and, two, to provide competitive skills training for companies to help them face up to the challenge of today’s world economy with the right tools. In short, to prepare people and companies and provide them with the skills needed to react to competence change.

E-learning course contents

The transferable skills training programmes develop digital, language and job searching skills.

1. Digital literacy: introduction to IT; basic and advanced-level computer programs; basic and advanced use of the internet.

2. Language skills in Catalan, Spanish and English.

3. Professional and job searching skills: professional career management; job searching techniques; sources of information on employment resources; strategies and techniques to improve public presentations and communication.

The other training programmes develop professional skills in logistics and operations; social and healthcare activities; information and communication technology activities and management; tourism, and company skills.

1. Logistics and operations: supplies (purchasing) and production; distribution.

2. Social and healthcare activities: nutrition and health; domestic violence; resources for non-professional carers; assessment, assignment and management of dependency.

3. Information and communication management activities: film and animation; design and creation of digital sound; advertising; sources of information, information search and recovery; management of information units and resources.

4. Tourism: information and communication technology skills in tourism; tourist destinations; eco-tourism and tourist service management.

5. Professional skills in companies: management assistant; administrative management; public relations.