AIBD / RTM In-country Workshop on Training of Trainers

AIBD / RTM In-country Workshop on Training of Trainers

New and diverse technological developments are impacting the media landscape and broadcast organizations in many ways. New delivery platforms, media products and services, enhanced audience expectations and financial as well as structural changes etc. are posing various challenges for the broadcast organizations. Well equipped and trained human resources are valuable assets for the organizations to meet these challenges.

RTM, the public service broadcaster of Malaysia has identified need for capacity building and training to meet the multi-skilling and multi-tasking requirements of its engineering staff. Trained trainers were required to manage the consequential in-house training needs. Accordingly, the AIBD / RTM in-country workshop on Training of Trainers was organised from 25 November to 6 December 2013 at AIBD Secretariat in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Fourteen participants from different sections and divisions of RTM attended the workshop. These covered engineering staff from the areas of TV and Radio Operations, TV production, Multi-channel broadcast, News automation as well as TV transmission and Satellite broadcast. It was observed that the participants had good knowledge of their area of specialization but did not have much idea about how to impart their subject matter knowledge to other staff, due to lack of requisite training skills. They need inputs to develop them as effective trainers on the job.

AIBD TOT programme for trainer / instruction development caters very well to these needs. The standardized structure and curriculum of TOT which deals with planning, conduct, management and evaluation of trainings for core competency development for organizational staff was suitably oriented to meet the requirement of the RTM staff. The ten day workshop covered Aims of training, Role of a trainer, Job analysis and Training Needs Analysis, Formulation of Training objectives, Instructional design and overview of Training methods/ techniques (OJT etc.) as well as Session preparation & presentation and Evaluation of training to ascertain its effectiveness.

The salient features of the workshop were experiential learning techniques for adult learners through interactive lecture presentations and discussions. To emphasize the Learning-by-Doing, structured projects involving group as well as individual presentations were included in the workshop. This generated lot of interest / involvement and helped participants to practice as well as demonstrate assimilation of learning in the workshop.

The participants of the workshop were a fairly homogeneous group and took keen interest in all the activities. The end of the workshop evaluation showed that participants found the inputs received by them in the workshop very useful and had gained very much in terms of knowledge, skills and attitudes for being effective trainers. They were very satisfied with the conduct of the workshop and felt confident in organising training in respective areas at RTM.

The consultant for the workshop was Mr. Y.K. Sharma, Advisor (Training & HRD), Broadcast Engineering Consultants (India) Limited, India. Mr Sharma observed that the knowledge and skills gained by the participants will go a long way in developing them as effective and efficient and trainers and help RTM build a core of trained trainers to train the staff and meet objectives of RTM’s human resources and capacitive building endeavor.