My name is Canan Schärrer. I have been working in adult education for over 20 years - firstly in the field of English (FIDE language course leader and lecturer) and secondly for trainers (course leader and lecturer). At the Aarau, Lucerne and Zurich Cooperative, I am responsible for all SVEB courses, including those for trainers.
While the first module of the SVEB overall training provides the foundation for entry into adult education, this training is not required by every training institute for teachers or lecturers. The training to become an instructor with a federal certificate is aimed specifically at people who are required to have this management qualification in order to be employed by the training institute or who wish to take on a management role in training institutes. Tasks such as quality responsibility, supervision and support of course managers or in personnel development departments are also conceivable.
The training to become a federally certified instructor is modular and currently comprises 5 modules. Supervision is also required for the professional examination. The SVEB is currently being reoriented and a revision will come into force on 1.1.2023. Of course, you can still start the training today and complete it after the new revision. If you would like to start training as a trainer before 2023, I recommend that you seek advice from your chosen training institute and find out about the options for transferring from the old system to the new system.
In further training for trainers, you learn to accompany group processes in learning events, to support individual learning processes, to design educational offers for adults and to design learning events for adults didactically. Whether this learning content will remain exactly the same after the revision is not yet known.
My lessons for trainers are geared towards the needs of the participants and I enrich them with a wide variety of methods. I see myself as a learning facilitator, coach and mentor. Our participants do a lot of work independently in pairs and groups. I support the course participants in developing and deepening their knowledge in a varied way.
The trainer course is useful if graduates have the opportunity to take on advisory functions in a team. These can be teaching quality, further education topics, observations, visits, evaluation discussions, educational offer and course design or support in the event of learning difficulties. The trainer course is also helpful for people who want to run challenging learning events.
Another advantage of training to become an instructor with a federal certificate is the subsidy from the federal government. Participants who pass the professional examination are reimbursed 50% of the training costs.