Programme title

Institution/organization

Tailor-made course

Contact person's address
Alterra-ILRI
PO Box 47
6700 AA Wageningen
The Netherlands

Contact person's Telephone/Fax
Tel +31-317-495549 Fax +31-317-495590

Contact person's E-mail: [email protected]

Type of programme: Course

Certificate: Certificate of participation

Frequency of programme
Upon request

Programme's main focus
Fostering of institutional capacity building.
Enhancement of the capabilities of water professionals.

Programme prospectus
In recent years, the International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement (ILRI) has offered training courses that are a direct follow-up of its research and advisory activities with and for, organizations in developing countries. Such courses are referred to as tailor-made courses because they are set up at the request of an organization (e.g. a research institute, government agency, or development project) and their content is tailored to the specific training needs of the requesting organization's staff. The courses are held either at ILRI, Wageningen, or on the premises of the requesting organization.

ILRI's tailor-made courses emphasize learning by doing. This is an approach that relies heavily on the participants' active involvement. An important part of learning by doing is that lecturers act more often as facilitators than as teachers in the traditional sense. They furnish the participants with guidelines for finding information, mastering new skills and choosing appropriate technologies for a particular situation. In subsequent exercises, the participants use these guidelines and their own experience, to formulate solutions to real-life problems.

Because the exchange of knowledge is a key element of ILRI's tailor-made courses, the participants will be expected to share their professional experiences with the group. They will also be expected to bring materials from their project or organization to show the group what kind of work they do, the professional challenges they face and how they meet those challenges.

These materials include research results, photographs and field reports. In addition, they will perform hands-on exercises in the practice sessions that are designed to familiarize them with new techniques.

All topics are introduced with lectures, followed by exercises, discussions and case studies. Lecturers are drawn primarily from the members of ILRI's own expert staff, but guest lecturers are brought in from outside as required.

Target group
Senior level staff /Junior professionals /Trainers

Programme WWW: http://www.ilri.nl

Dates/duration: On demand

Language: English

Partners: Local partnerships

International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement

Acronym
ILRI

Country
The Netherlands

Address
Alterra-ILRI
P.O.Box 47
6700 AA Wageningen

Tel +31-317-495549

Fax +31-317-495590

E-mail
[email protected]

Institute/organization www
http://www.ilri.nl

Brief description of institution/organization
The International Institute for Land Reclamation and Improvement
(ILRI) was founded in 1955 as an independent, non-profit institute under The Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Nature Management and Fisheries, with the mandate to collect and disseminate knowledge for better and sustainable use of land and water resources, especially in developing countries.

In performing its mandate, ILRI's core activities are: to undertake applied research on the sustainable development of irrigated agriculture and the results of such research are published in the series of ILRI publications and in papers, scientific journals and conference proceedings; to hold annual, post-graduate training courses on irrigation, drainage and related subjects; to provide technical support and specialist advisory services to irrigation and drainage projects abroad.

Since 1960, ILRI has conducted annual post-graduate courses on irrigation and drainage for scientists and field engineers in mid-career. ILRI presents its courses so that participants can easily apply what they have learned directly upon their return to their home country. ILRI offers three types of courses:

- Annual courses on the core activities of the Institute. The longest running of these courses is the International Course on Land Drainage. More than one thousand drainage professionals from all over the world have participated in it since the first session in 1962.
- Tailor-made courses that meet the specific training needs of groups of engineers, either at ILRI or in the home country. ILRI works with local research institutes, consultancy firms and Government agencies to develop the content of these courses and attune it to the local situation and conditions.
- Train-the-trainer courses that teach junior engineers and staff of counterpart organizations the skills they need to develop, plan and present their own tailor-made courses.