STAR

The Skills Training in Rural Areas Project - STAR (until 2008 the Agricultural and Rural Voca-tional Education Project) started in January 2001 in Naryn oblast in order to support Kyrgyz part-ners and local communities in adapting the agricultural vocational education system to the new situation of the private market economy.
Today, the project is helping to promote skills development in rural areas by contributing to an ef-fective and sustainable vocational education system that will provide graduates with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that increase chances on the labor market and allow to successfully run a rural business. The project runs two components:
• Agricultural Skills Training in Rural Areas (A-STAR)
• Tourism Skills Training in Rural Areas (T-STAR)

Background

In Kyrgyzstan, many farmers are faced with the challenge of winning their sustenance from plots of land in order to succeed in the market economy. Especially the emerging generation of young farm-ers lacks adequate training opportunities to help them succeed as farmer-entrepreneurs. Hence, in 2001, Helvetas started the pilot phase of the Agricultural Vocational Education Project (AVEP) with a completely new education system: - in terms of content, teaching and learning approach. In the second phase (starting from 2006) the project additionally introduced a new approach to owner-ship and co-financing of rural training through local vocational training funds (KOJO).
Based on
• the success story of AVEP,
• the previous involvement of Helvetas in the Kyrgyz tourism sector (community-based tourism, destination marketing) and
• the priority setting of the Kyrgyz Government in its Country Development Strategy (CDS), as well as
• feedback from stakeholders in the field,
Helvetas initiated in 2008 a new project component on skills development in the hotel and restau-rant sector (T-STAR).

Approach and Implementation

The project creates and implements new forms of education enabling rural citizens to gain relevant and applicable experience from teaching, which is adapted to local conditions in partner training providers. The curriculum, teaching and learning approaches are based on the reality of Kyrgyz life and are developed with the participation of stakeholders: students, parents, teachers, local and na-tional authorities, training providers and private sector.
For the agricultural skills development (A-STAR), the project collaborates with partner training providers in Naryn, Yssykkol, Chui and Talas oblasts training more than 1000 students and already releasing over 500 graduates from two different courses of 3 years and 16 months, which are pro-vided by vocational schools, using their own facilities and natural resources. The project strives for sustainability through the local training funds KOJO which cover the operational costs of the 16-month "farmer entrepreneur" course through co-financing mechanism. Additionally, the students receive a micro-credit for implementing their own business project and learn practical tasks during a farm apprenticeship.
Related to tourism skills development (T-STAR) the project promotes the establishment of sustain-able training delivery mechanisms with the purpose of offering short courses to prepare hotel per-sonnel and job seekers for the season at Lake Yssykkol. In order to train the trainees as realistically and practically as possible, the courses are held right in partner hotels. The inception phase involves adapting courses, which have been offered in Switzerland to the Kyrgyz situation.

Project objectives

In its work the project concentrates on the following objectives:
1. To promote sustainable training delivery mechanism
• with a local training governance approach and multi-source financing for skills development in agriculture.
• by facilitating employers' ownership and co-financing of skills development in the hotel and restaurant sector
2. To lobby for reforming of the Vocational Education and Training:

Activities:

• Participatory development of new innovations (education system, apprenticeship, curricula, modules);
• Development of training materials;
• Training and coaching of trainers in subjects and methodology;
• Management training and support to training providers;
• Mobilisation of local community and increasing their participation in training governance;
• Establishment and backstopping of local training funds.

Partners (in alphabetic order)

• CIEA seminar: a worldwide seminar and knowledge network for agricultural vocational and university education;
• GTZ;
• ILO;
• Kompanion, Microcredit Company;
• Kyrgyz - Turkish University "Manas";
• Local Training Funds KOJO of Yssykkol, Chui and Talas oblasts;
• Swiss College of Agriculture in Zollikofen, Switzerland;
• Swiss Hotel Association, Hotelleriesuisse;
• The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Kyrgyz Republic;
• The State Agency for Vocational Education and Training;
• Training providers in Naryn, Yssykkol, Chui and Talas oblasts;

STAR in brief

More information can be found at www.kojo.kg

How to contact us:

STAR

214 Komsomolskaya Str., Balykchy,

Tel.: +996 (3944) 2 72 51, 2 72 50
Fax: +996 (3944) 2 72 51

E-mail: star@helvetas.kg 

Helvetas

43/1 Grajdanskaya St., Bishkek

Tel: +996 (312) 36 06 72, 36 06 74

Fax: +996 (312) 36 06 73

E-mail: program@helvetas.kg