Front-line staff hone field extension skills

Front line staff members of the Philippine Carabao Center (PCC), are now expected to improve their field extension services as they completed their week-long activity on “Training for Trainers” held at the PCC National Headquarters and Gene Pool, Science City of Muñoz last July 8-12.

According to Gilbert Caracuel, training course facilitator, the course content was designed based on the needs of the participants to enhance their knowledge, skills, and methods in organizing and relating with the PCC’s main clients—the farmers.

The course content was summarized into three modules. The first tackled the perspective and context of training while the second module depicted the training cycle model. The third module dealt with the how-to’s of preparing and packaging of training proposal for target clients.

“The training was originally intended for the 10 members of the Daily Herd Improvement Program (DHIP) of PCC but was extended to include 24 staff members of the PCC at Central Luzon State University (PCC at CLSU), PCC at Mariano Marcos State University (PCC at MMSU), and the National Headquarters and Gene Pool,” Conrad Penuliar, training coordinator said.

The theme of the training was “Trainers as Non-formal Educators.” Two professors from CLSU, Dr. Soledad M. Roguel and Dr. Jocelyn R. Dollente, and a former professor of University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), Dr. Rogelio V. Cuyno served as support speakers and main speaker, respectively.

Dr. Roguel discussed “Andragogy: How Adults Learn and Implication for Trainers” while Dr. Dollente talked about “Teaching Skills of Trainers”.

Assignments were also given to the participants to worked on System Mapping, Training Need Analysis (TNA), Sample Curriculum Design and Training Proposal. They presented their outputs and were critiqued by Dr. Cuyno.

Another training titled “Training for Extensionists” is also scheduled to take place on July 22-26 at the PCC National Headquarters and Gene Pool. This training, however, will be for extensionists of the PCC only, specifically those from the DHIP/ED at the National Impact Zone (NIZ).