Please join me in welcoming 5 new WFCP members:

• Chile : – Centro de Formación Técnica de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (UCEVALPO) – www.ucevalpo.cl and Instituto Profesional y Centro de Formación Técnica   Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (DuocUC) – www.duoc.cl
• Saudi Arabia: Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) : www.tvtc.gov.sa/English 
• The Caribbean : Association of Caribbean Tertiary Institutions  (ACTI): www.acticarib.org/
• India: National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and Research (N.I.T.T.T.R): www.nitttrchd.ac.in/ 

Paul Brennan, VP-International Partnerships – ACCC

What a job I have! Have traveled to Amsterdam and Brussels to meet with our equivalent associations and networks to promote membership in the WFCP and participation in the 2012 World Congress. 

In Amsterdam I met with the recently-formed Network of Universities of Applied Sciences (UASNet). This is a network of thirteen associations of polytechnics and professional universities which offer applied diplomas and bachelors mostly, and which also focus on applied research. 

They have come together to advocate on behalf of the great value and relevancy of “professional” and “non-traditional” universities and polytechnics, and to promote collaboration in the growing field of applied research. Sound familiar?

The institutional and association names vary from continent to continent, from country to country, but the challenges and unique contributions of our applied education and applied research sector are very similar.

Perhaps by coming together as a World Federation we can help each other become more effective in our advocacy and move ahead much faster by sharing ideas and resources and even co-creating new ones!

And with a story-telling, semi-retired Irishman, Tim Creedon, at the helm of the network, progress is being made towards collaboration and advocacy at the EU for more support.

On to Brussels, EU capital and beautiful historic city, to meet with Stefan Delplace, Secretary-General of EURASHE, the European Association for Professional Higher Education, with 1200 association and institutional members from 40 countries stretching Ireland to Russia.

EURASHE is funded in part by the EU and takes on some of the responsibilities for implementing the Bologna-Copenhagen processes. It organizes working groups dealing with the priority issues of Applied Research (with UASNet), the European Qualification Framework, International Mobility, Quality Assurance, Lifelong Learning and Employability. UASNet group also  contributes  to the discussion on Research and Innovation in the bologna Process, through their active cooperation with EURASHE.

The WFCP plans are to set up such international working groups on common issues for us all. Our first one has been in Environmental Citizenship and Renewable Energy training. The European EURASHE working groups could expand and add another circle of reach and exchange as they join the new global working groups of the World Federation.

We will work closely with Stefan Delplace, who has kept EURASHE going for many years to make the World Federation and the World Congress known in this huge and critical region of the world.

Hopefully the theme of our Congress, Driving the Global Economy, will give some sense of hope and new ideas in a Europe hard hit by bad news on the economic front recently.

Paul Brennan, VP-International Partnerships – ACCC

We are here with 20 or so Canadian colleges. Our sister associations from Canada (CBIE and AUCC) are there as well as well as Jim McKenney, VP of the American Association of Community Colleges, also a founding partner of the WFCP.

Jim Knight gives the keynote presentation, promoting the World Federation and attendance at the World Congress in Halifax at the end of May 2012.

CEAIE recently joined the WFCP together with its 1,250 institutes of technology and college members that it represents.

And what impressive institutions, having visited quite a few last year and this time again. In Changzhou near Shanghai and in Tienjin, they have rebuilt and brought together three or four institutes into Cities of Knowledge. These cities make more efficient use of common labs, research centres and small enterprise incubators, and have even attracted universities and companies to their large campuses.

Equipment is modern and everything is spotless. Students take some military training outside as we visit, and one can sense how this country with 1.4 billion people manages to keep it all together: discipline for the greater good.

But the Ministry tells us in a briefing that the management of the institutions needs to be improve. Specifically, improve the pedagogy changing it from rote to innovative learning.  As well, it the Ministry notes their institutes need to learn from the best globally as China now needs this kind of training more than university education!

The Ministry and the CEAIE want international exchanges and support to move their institutes and their economy to the next level.

The CEAIE therefore approved a proposal from 25 of their institutions, which had all experienced partnerships in the past with Canada and the USA.  The focus is to organize a Vocational Leadership Training (VELT)Program for their leaders of the top one hundred institutions, to start with.

For the past three years, the CEAIE, under the leadership of Zong Wa and the management and care of Fu Jieying and her colleagues, has sent close to 100 institute presidents and vice-presidents to study six other nations’
leadership values and practices. The selected countries are the USA (AACC), Great Britain (AoC), Australia (TAFE), Germany, Singapore and Canada (ACCC).

In Canada, this one-month experience involves a one week of introduction to Canadian college leadership values and practices, two weeks of job shadowing of volunteer Canadian colllege presidents, in smaller groups, and a final wrap-up and sharing week. Participants all produce a visual and narrative report on their learnings and a plan to move change forward in their own institutions.

CEAIE decided that the next leadership group sent to Canada will come in May of 2012 so that they will be able to stay on for the World Congress in Halifax as another priceless leadership experience.

Having the CEAIE as a member of the World Federation and a new member of the WFCP Board is an exciting addition that begins to make the WFCP into a more truly international network.

Following their example and experiences with six countries, perhaps the WFCP can stimulate the setting up of such leadership development and exchanges for many more member associations around the world! Anyone interested in making that happen?

Huanying nimen dao Haileefaque, Jianada, lai zai 2012!
(Welcome to Halifax, Canada in 2012, for those who do not speak Chinese!)

Paul Brennan, VP – International Partnerships, ACCC

I am in the historic city of Ho Chi Minh (Saigon). It feels quite special to be here for the first time.

I find it amazing to witness how the entrepreneurial people here continue to overcome the impact of war in their country.

I am here to attend the 3rd ACCC-VACC (Vietnam Association of Community
Colleges) Partnership Forum.  The Forum seeks to stimulate two-way institutional partnerships.

A special relationship exists between Canadian and Vietnamese colleges.  The Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) obtained Canadian Government funding to help MOET (Ministry of Higher Education) set up the very first college in Vietnam, Tra Vinh Community College.

ACCC also helped set up the Vietnam Association of Community Colleges (VACC) with over 40 members now, mostly funded by MOET.

More recently ACCC received Asian Development Bank and MOLISSA (Ministry of Vocational Training) funding to help design the expansion of a vocational college system throughout Vietnam.

Now the challenge is continuing this productive relationship without any government funding.

Meeting this challenge is the inimitable Dr Khanh, President of that original Tra Vinh College and founder of the VACC. Dr Khanh is well known in Vietnam and abroad.  At the mention of his all salute him knowingly and with admiration.

I am attending the Study in Canada Fair in Ho Chi Minh. Also attending are 20 Canadian colleges and even more Canadian school boards, language schools and universities. When our Consul General hears that Dr Khanh is present in the hall, he introduces him to the entire crowd as a long and true friend of Canada.

Dr Khanh promises to come with a delegation of VACC members to Halifax for the World Congress.

Our last two days are spent in Hanoi, where we discover that there is a second association of colleges and training centres, all funded by MOLISSA. The Executive Director of the Vietnamese Vocational Training Association (VVTA) commits to joining the WFCP and attending the World Congress with his president.

Having more than one association of colleges and polytechnics and whatever other names have been given to post-secondary institutions of Advanced Skills for Employment, as members of the World Federation, is not a problem at all. In Canada we have three associations that are members of the WFCP, with overlapping memberships, but each wanting to collaborate much more with sister associations and institutions around the world. This is the power of the WFCP global network.

We look forward to hosting even more Vietnamese colleagues in Halifax!

Paul Brennan, VP – International Partnerships ACCC

I am attending the annual conference of the Association of Caribbean Tertiary Institutions (ACTI) in Grenada.

The blue-green ocean, sun and people all make this a welcoming place.

ACTI has 63 institutional members in the 18 countries of region, including four universities and a majority of colleges. In a context of scarce resources, ACTI has succeeded in delivering value to its members.

ACTI’s outgoing two-term president, Dr Roosevelt Williams an inspirational and effective leader who has infused energy into the association. The new executive convinced him to stay on as the Past President and Advisor.

Under Roosevelt’s able management, ACTI was able to hire a staff person, increased the membership and convenes a yearly conference.

At this year’s conference, one of the best sessions involved ten students from colleges of the region speaking about what attending a college has meant to them.  

At the World Congress in Halifax in May 2012 it would be ideal invite international students in Canada to join a few Canadian. Hearing why studying at a college, and at an overseas one for some, has contributed to their learning, job readiness and lives in general would be of great value to all of us.

ACTI and a number of their institutions will be joining the World Federation and coming in good numbers to the World Congress in Halifax.

Welcome ACTI to our growing international network.  We are looking forward to hearing about your planned new college programs in arts management and other innovations.

Paul Brennan, VP-International partnerships ACCC (in Grenada in November 2011)