The ‘Changing World of the Trainer’ considers how the human resource development professional should undertake his or her role in today’s organization. It offers a new framework which reflects the business reality of the modern world. This practical work proceeds through a series of tools, checklists, questionnaires and instruments and presents an extensive series of illustrative case studies, drawn from organizations throughout the world. The book argues that the problems that trainers face are fundamentally the same. Their objective is to put a process in place to ensure that employees are able to acquire the knowledge and skill required by the organization. The acquisition of individual and collective knowledge and skills is not the primary purpose of the organization – skills are a means to the end of profitability and service delivery. Hence training is a derived or secondary activity. In the world economy a global model of human resource development is emerging. In one form or another, organizations are seeking to develop what are known as high performance working practices. What the customer requires drives business processes: staff must be recruited, retained and motivated. Effective learning, training and development is now essential. This does not mean the end of the traditional off-the-job training course. There are many occasions, and these are illustrated within the book, when a training course delivered by a subject-matter expert is an effective way of promoting the organization’s objectives through individual learning. However, it is increasingly evident that the range of interventions undertaken by the trainer extends far beyond the design and delivery of the training course. There has been a huge increase in coaching and in ways of promoting group learning. Action learning is undergoing a resurgence. Generally there has been a growth of non-directive forms of intervention; a shift in emphasis from instruction to the facilitation of the learning process. Many practitioners are proceeding effectively to redefine their roles in a variety of different ways. However, it is now time to offer a formal expression of the new training and learning role. Martyn Sloman is highly respected intermationally within the field of learning and development, with experience as a practitioner in the public, private and voluntary sectors.

Across the globe, vocational education and training is characterised by a number of over-arching trends, including the increasing use of technology, the growing importance of information and communications systems, and changes to national demographics. At the interface between the education and training system and the world of work, VET faces the challenge of tackling these changes, of making a constructive contribution to solving the problems posed by the transition from education to employment, and of ensuring that the next generation has the skills it – and the economy – needs. This volume comprises thirty individual contributions that together add up to a comprehensive overview of the current situation in vocational education and training, its strengths and weaknesses, and its prospects. VET experts from Canada, the USA, India, China, Japan and Korea, as well as from a number of European countries, focus on their national context and how it fits in to the bigger picture. The contributions combine theoretical discussions from various strands of VET research with evidence from country case studies and examples from current practice.

A country’s culture consciously and subconsciously shapes values, assumptions, perceptions, and behaviors. Understanding how talent is developed in different cultures is essential for global talent development (TD) professionals. To be successful, these professionals must cultivate the appropriate workplace and learning activities that build on the work styles of participants. In this issue of TD at Work you will: • Discover the challenges of training globally, including how they relate to leadership and communication. • Learn about the core competencies of global TD professionals. • Gain tips and information about training design, development, implementation, and evaluation. • Receive guidelines for global scheduling and resource challenges.

This collection of papers represents the outcomes of the International Symposium held in Delft, The Netherlands, on June 13-15, 2007, at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education. The papers discuss how to contribute to the sustainability of effective international development and water management with a digest of lessons learned on local knowledge and capacity development. Authors expose recent research, strategies and policy positions. Water for a Changing World starts with an introduction and overview of the water resources and the water supply and sanitation sectors in developing countries and worldwide. Topics of these reviews are water security, environmental integrity, the newest earth system science technologies, integrated urban water management, and the global-local nexus of water governance. The second part presents positions on catalyzing and disseminating knowledge and capacity development in response to the current challenges and opportunities. It consists of a variety of papers on theory and analysis of capacity development, methods and case studies, and policy positions. The authors represent a diverse and representative group of prominent actors, practitioners and academics within the water, sanitation and development sectors.