Trainers' Training
by Yolanda MARTIN
This paper presents an overall picture of the fields of action and strategies developed by the ONCE in connection with the training of trainers for its members, the blind and the visually impaired in Spain.
Two main areas will be analyzed in this overview:
1. General View of the Spanish National Organization of the Blind (ONCE) and the ONCE Group
1.1 The ONCE's Mission
1.2. Who makes up the ONCE
1.3. The ONCE's Organizational Structure
1.4. Sources of Financing
1.1. The ONCE's Mission
A Public Law Corporation, under the guidance of the Spanish State, the main objective of which is to support Spain's blind and visually impaired in their social integration, through the promotion of their personal autonomy, which is achieved with the assistance of the rendering of social services and the fostering of the training and employment of its members.
In order to make this aim a reality, the institution is financed with the proceeds of the sale of the "cupón", a lottery concession granted by the State.
These specialized services are a complement to those that in general are provided by the Public Administrations, but with the peculiarity of taking into account the integral conception of the individual when providing them, something that undoubtedly converts this institution into an unusual model amongst other organizations for the disabled, whether Spanish or international.
In short, it can be said that this social services group is a key element in achieving the full integration of the blind and visually impaired in today's society, in addition to being the ultimate aim of the ONCE.
This reality of providing assistance and services to the blind and visually impaired would not be possible without the important logistics network that covers the whole of Spain, consisting of 44 centres where basic care services are provided.
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1.2. Who makes up the ONCE
The ONCE is made up of those blind and visually impaired persons who possess the basic requirements for membership.
Membership of the ONCE is free.
At the present moment, the ONCE has 63,083 blind and visually impaired members.
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1.3. The ONCE's Organizational Structure
The Once Group's organization chart comprises three major areas:
A. ONCE General Directorate : responsible for providing all social services to the blind and visually impaired.
The GD has a payroll of 28,000 workers, of which 24,000 (85%) are workers with a disability.
The management and development of training actions for trainers in this Area is carried out by the "Directorate of Education", the "Directorate of Employment" and the "Directorate of Human Resources".
B. ONCE Business Corporation (CEOSA) : ONCE companies which generate employment for the disabled.
The Corporation has a payroll of 18,000, of which 1,300 (7%) are people with some type of disability.
In this Area, the Directorate of Human Resources is responsible for all the training activities for trainers that may be developed within the sphere of CEOSA.
C. ONCE Foundation : an organization committed to solidarity that protects the social and labour integration of persons with non-sight related disabilities.
There are 11,500 people within this institution and its companies, of which 8,000 (68%) have a disability of some sort (physical, sensorial or mental).
Here, the planning, development and implementation of all training activities for trainers that are carried out in this executive Area are located within the F.S.C. Training and Employment Managements, which co-ordinate with the lines of development marked for these actions by the ONCE Foundation's Executive Committee.
The three areas report to the General Council, which is the ONCE's highest governing body.
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1.4. Sources of Financing
In order to make this social work possible, the institution depends on the proceeds from the sale of the cupón and the efforts of its salespeople, which currently number 21,844 (of which 15,000 are blind or visually impaired and 6,844 are non-blind disabled persons), as a very large percentage of its budgets is covered with its income; that is, of the gross returns obtained from coupon sales, approximately one half is devoted to the payment of prizes, 20% is used to pay for social services and the remaining 3% is used to finance its activities in support of the ONCE Foundation, addressed to other groups of disabled, as mentioned above.
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2. The Training of Trainers Within the ONCE
2.1. Justification of the Need for Special Attention to the Training of Trainers
2.2. Generic Objectives of the ONCE Training Plan for Trainers
2.3. Trainer Training Principles developed by the ONCE and specifically addressed to Persons with a Visual Disability
2.4. Method adopted for Scheduling and Designing Training Activities for Trainers in the ONCE
2.5. The Training of Trainers developed by the ONCE
2.1. Justification of the Need for Special Attention to the Training of Trainers
The particularly controversial situation of today's labour market and the increasingly necessary specialization of professional qualifications require measures designed to optimize the processes and the human, economic and material resources devoted to training.
In this way, the training processes for trainers implemented within organizations that have acquired a certain renown and social responsibility, such as the ONCE, take on particular importance.
The qualification of all the institution's human resources must necessarily pass through a scaled training process, so that professionals trained up to a first level then transmit their technical knowledge to colleagues and other workers within the organization.
Thus arises, within the ONCE, the need to carry out Training Activities for Trainers in which, in addition to all the specific and specialized technical know-how, trainers are taught pedagogic and didactic strategies that enable them to transmit the knowledge they have acquired.
This can be better understood if applied to the group of ONCE members who are of working age and active, which in November 2002 amounted to 17,503 persons, of which 16,638 were employed. As can easily be deduced, the qualification or re-qualification of all these people would represent an investment in training that no organization can assume unless through the scaled training referred to above.
In spite of this, and coinciding with Shultz (Theory of Human Capital), it can be confirmed that the ONCE considers that people constitute the organization's main capital and that the institution's development is inseparable from the development of the people of which it is made up. For this reason, it is essential to know members' potential and provide adequate means for developing that potential.
Based on this, some principles have been established within the institution to guarantee the success of this type of action. Consequently, an action of this type must be permanent: it is a requirement not only of people but also of the medium's evolution.
Secondly, training must respond to the real needs of the organization's workers in the future.
Thirdly, the training of trainers must be provided in conditions of permanent control and monitoring, directed by training specialists.
In this way, the training of trainers can be understood as "a series of activities that tend towards preparing the worker to competently carry out its current or future work and to develop its capacity to transmit this expertise to other workers within the Institution". Hence, this encompasses a wider concept of training than that of teaching or that of learning.
This is a type of training that improves the quality of working procedures and methods and reduces costs, rotation and apprenticeship times.
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2.2. Generic Objectives of the ONCE Training Plan for Trainers
These objectives result from the basic challenges faced by the ONCE itself. Thus the aim is to:
- Increase the organization's competitiveness, reinforcing its technical potential and adjusting the theoretical and practical abilities of the workers. This first objective is general and affects everyone. It permits the up-dating of the vocational functions that are carried out in the workplace.
- Guarantee or develop professional abilities through re-qualification, the increase of functions and competencies or possible promotion.
- Envisage circuits that lead to a progressive and general increase in know-how, so as to adapt workers' qualifications to the organization's needs.
- Place special emphasis on the various categories of less qualified personnel, the insertion of members demanding employment and obligations in the case of an activity's restructuring.
Aware of the importance of the Training of Trainers in the training and optimization of professionals, the ONCE always bears in mind that:
- Training is a means and not an end in itself
- Its value is related to the quality of the objectives that the ONCE sets itself and the actions that result from them
- It is advisable to weigh up the appropriateness of the training, implementing it at the right moment and making it attractive
- In order to involve people, particularly the people in charge of those who are going to be trained, it is advisable to engage their participation from the moment of the project's preparation.
- Closely linked to social strategy, training is associated with precautionary management and planning. It tends towards the improvement of workers' potential whilst at the same time assisting in the up-dating of professional skills.
- It is an investment from which the organization hopes to obtain medium- and long-term benefits, the profitability of which must be calculated. Therefore, the ONCE weighs up its quality, comparing it with its cost and with the budgets devoted to it.
- Training must not be isolated from other decisions that affect personnel:
- It must be brought closer to evaluation systems: tasks carried out, skills required for hiring and transfers.
- The extent to which it can be associated with certain decisions must be studied, such as remuneration, change of statute and progress in the worker's employment, as it is not advisable to associate the two, at least not gratuitously, as it can lead to problems of unfulfilled expectations on the part of those who participate in this training. To associate Training with remuneration is a very common error and the two should not be related unless the intention really exists of carrying out a Human Resources policy in this sense.
- It should not be used as an all-purpose solution to all problems.
- Training projects must maintain a balance between what the organization is pursuing and what the institution's workers are demanding. At the same time, the organization ensures that the programmes it offers are compatible with:
1. The organization's economic and structural requirements
2. The characteristics of each individual and of the relationship networks within the organization
3. Time limitations
- Not all workers can be trained at the same time. Therefore, the ONCE studies the percentage of training courses that are offered per cycle, taking into account their annual duration and the number of people that will be absent from the centres at the same time. Certain long training periods are broken down into fractions that can be easily assimilated, even though the complete course may extend to several years, with the rhythm followed by the training, allowing participants' progress to be controlled better.
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2.3. Trainer Training Principles developed by the ONCE and specifically addressed to Persons with a Visual Disability
Within the institutional framework of the ONCE, "training principles" are understood to be those rules that must be taken into account in any circumstance when carrying out a training activity addressed to persons with a visual disability.
In line with the pedagogic and didactic methodology described by Baztan, the ONCE differentiates between two basic types of principle: pedagogic principles and ethical principles.
A) PEDAGOGIC PRINCIPLES
Assembled, coded and practiced by Carrard, they constitute the basis of the famous "active pedagogic method", used with extraordinary success, once adapted to the specific nature of this group, both in their teaching and vocational training and the improvement of adults within the ONCE Institution. It is easy to appreciate that these principles take into account not only intellectual but also affective and social factors, understanding training as something that is addressed to the person as a whole.
These principles can be summarised in the following concepts:
1) Specific Teaching
- To go from the concrete to the abstract, from observation to the learning of rules and concepts
- To appeal to observation - of the phenomenon, of the work - before passing to reasoning and the search for an explanation
- To avoid theoretical notions. To use the experimental form whenever possible
- To avoid audiovisual techniques
2) Active Teaching
- To learn by doing
- To encourage personal experience
- To make learners discover things for themselves: It is easier to remember what is learned through one's own discovery
- To provoke discussion; to debate different positions
3) Progressive Teaching
- To break each problem down into its component parts
- Not to teach more than one thing at a time
- Before going on, to wait until what has been taught has been understood
- To go from the simple to the complex
4) Repetition
- To repeat the exercise several times (the visually impaired who go to the course physically or mentally tired, even fully prepared but with limited time, etc., benefit greatly from repetition)
- In the next session to go over what has already been taught before continuing
5) Varied Teaching
- To vary the exercises
- Not to demand prolonged effort on the same question
- To avoid boredom
- At the beginning, not to take into account the time but above all to seek quality
6) Individualised Teaching
- To get to know the learners personally
- To take into account the characteristics of each one and to treat them accordingly
- To make an effort to provide "made to measure" teaching
7) Stimulating Teaching
- To encourage, motivate
- To appeal to personal interest and motives
- To allow situations to occur in which trainers/learners are successful
- To achieve constancy in learners' efforts until they are crowned with success
8) Co-operative Teaching
- To promote a spirit of mutual assistance and solidarity
- To avoid competitive emulation
- To encourage work in a group because of what this represents as regards the accumulation of experiences, points of view and wealth of knowledge
9) Guided Teaching
- To avoid wrong paths and "false steps"
- To correct any mistakes immediately
- Not to allow faulty habits to take root: they could lead to the creation of incorrect professional habits
10) Self-Training and Self-Assessment
- To encourage self-improvement (comparison with oneself over time)
- To generate self-assessment (control of one's own results and progress)
With the inspiration of these principles of active pedagogy, the ONCE lets all its professionally qualified trainers of trainers know the general rules listed below and which serve as a basis for the subsequent training of other members:
1. Rule of Analysis: However complicated it may be, all jobs can be broken down into elementary operations
2. Rule of Synthesis: Orderly guiding of thoughts, orientated from the single to the compound
3. Rule of Control: All activities must be subjected to general reviews and control points so as to avoid deviations from the initial objective
Specific Rules: A series of specific rules relating to the subject and object of the teaching can be deduced from these basic rules.
Relating to the Subject :
- To know each learner individually, taking into account its temperament, concerns and specific visual disability
- To present the work, awaken interest in it and instil confidence. The use of centres of interest stimulates the desire to learn. Attention is focussed better with short and varied demonstrations.
- To make the learner find the solution. For this there is nothing better than discussion and dialogue which allows the learner to "participate". At the same time it encourages a spirit of initiative.
- To allow the learner to judge for itself what it is doing, allowing it to see the progress it is making.
- The receiver of the training must correct its own errors, helped in this by its co-learners, with the trainer reserving him or herself for those cases in which the error is not detected.
- Not to make the learner do a job that is incompatible with the knowledge acquired or with its disability, as would occur if forced to confront a new difficulty without first having overcome the previous one.
- To create a team spirit, built up on a spirit of collaboration and fair treatment. Everybody, slow learners and fast learners, those who are brilliant and those who are less so, must fulfil their mission.
Relating to the Object :
- To provide active and specific teaching, avoiding impro-visation, going from the simple to the complex and from the concrete to the abstract, to make use of the auditory and motor memory, using clear language and precise movements, seeking a balance between physical and mental exercise, controlling the pauses, taking advantage of learners' interest and the diversity of their opinions, etc.
- To check and evaluate the results obtained by carrying out as many reviews as may be necessary, controlling quality and speed, always considering the possibility of obtaining improvements, etc.
B) ETHICAL PRINCIPLES
Whilst the efficacy of training depends on respect for pedagogic principles, its legitimacy is conditioned by respect for ethical principles.
Within the ONCE everybody heeds the principle that all human actions must be subjected to certain moral rules, and training, given by people and received by people, can be no exception. So far so good. But it is when these principles are formulated that the difficulties start, difficulties that are reflected in the fact that, as opposed to pedagogic principles, ethical principles are rarely formulated. But this is where the danger lies: unformulated ideas end up by not being heeded, whereas written ideas not only invite reflection but can be perfected subsequently. This is the reason why it has been considered of interest to set these principles down in this paper:
1. Principle of Competence :
The activity of training other people may only be undertaken by those in possession of sufficient knowledge and experience of:
- the disabled, the laws of psychology and behavioural mechanisms
- the training profession and the pedagogic techniques to be used
- the subject matter that has to be taught
- the needs that the specific training must satisfy
2.- Principle of Respect :
The person to be trained must never be looked upon as a medium or instrument; therefore:
- As soon as possible, the involvement of the persons who are going to be trained must be sought
- Instead of supplying ready-made opinions or indicating lines of conduct that have already been drawn out, individuals must be given a complete and objective vision of the situation or problem, using a correct reasoning method, so that, at the end, learners can choose their ideas or attitudes with complete freedom
3. Principle of Loyalty :
Not to communicate to anybody or to use for other purposes information obtained about the persons being trained on the occasion of their training. Consequently:
- Never act behind the backs of the individuals being trained
- Never hide from them the objectives being pursued in their training
- Eliminate all training techniques and methods that involve the risk of "brain washing"
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2.4. Method adopted for Scheduling and Designing Training Activities for Trainers in the ONCE
The ONCE schedules and designs the training activities of its trainers based on a general scheme of analysis of the real situation, for the purpose of always responding to the needs detected within the organization itself. Thus, the method adopted responds to the following schematic:
- Study of the Organization's needs and their correspondence with the qualification requirements of the workers of which it is made up. Consequently, the following questions have to be answered:
What is the goal to be achieved?
What is the current situation?
The difference between the one and the other is what is denominated: Training Needs
- Prioritizing Needs. Establishment of the need and urgency of covering the organization's qualification deficits
- Planning of Trainer Training Activities: Preparation of the Training Action's Technical Conditions, covering such aspects as:
The Plan's general objective
Specific objectives
Didactic content
Sequence of activities: time schedule
Timing of the different didactic units
Evaluation criteria to be adopted and the instruments for measuring them
Resources to be used and the persons responsible for implementing each phase
- Development of the Action
- Follow-Up: Feedback during the action's development so as to correct possible deviations during the action's execution
- Evaluation and control of the whole process
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2.5. The Training of Trainers developed by the ONCE
For fiscal 2002, the Social Services Area of the ONCE G.C. planned the implementation of 50 training actions that, integrated within the institution's continuous training activity, will train a total of 1,175 of the institution's professionals and managers, with the aim that, at the end of their training, they will become transmitters of the information received and, consequently, the trainers of their colleagues, in accordance with the institution's scaled training process referred to in earlier sections of this paper.
Amongst these actions, directed at improving the qualifications of the professionals that make up the ONCE, and mainly carried out by workers with a visual disability, worthy of special attention are those conducted by the General Directorate's Social Services Area.
Thus, the following training activities have been carried out which, whilst they cannot be directly defined as "the training of trainers" in the literal sense of the expression, do involve the transmission of information in a scaled manner and, therefore, fall within this concept:
- Training in the new Social Services Model
- Training for the qualification of Typhlotechnical Instructors
- Training directed at the knowledge and management of the application of ONCE employment: the Members' Employment Exchange (B.E.A.)
Similarly, the Directorate of Employment, within the framework of the Social Services Area, also conducts trainer training activities for ONCE members, seekers of employment or better employment, with a view to improving their qualifications so as to increase their level of employability.
As an example, the "Training Management" training activities, completed recently, can be quoted.
In turn, the Training Area carries out trainer training activities for both ONCE workers and training professionals who offer their services to the institution.
This is the case of the following actions:
- Training of Trainers as support teachers, so as to qualify them to be Braille teachers
- Training of Trainers as external monitors so that they can give any type of training classes within the ONCE organization and/or in similar organizations that collaborate with it
At the same time, also worthy of mention are the training courses, Conferences, Congresses and other types of public activity conducted by the ONCE for other professionals, groups and institutions that collaborate with the Organization in such diverse fields as labour insertion, the professional qualification of the visually disabled, social and vocational awareness for equal conditions for the blind when compared to the general public in all walks of life in addition to all those activities orientated towards the full integration and normalization of the visually disabled in social and professional environments.
2.5.1. Two Specific Trainer Training Experiences in the ONCE: the Training of Integral Rehabilitators and the Training of Typhlotechnical Instructors
The ONCE regularly conducts qualification and professional re-qualification training cycles for its workers, thereby guaranteeing the updating of the technical know-how pertinent to their professional profiles and the maintenance of their professional skills adapted to the needs and requirements posed by all those users who receive their services - blind or visually impaired persons.
One example of this practice of adapting professional profiles to the requirements of each specific moment is the activity carried out by the Personal Autonomy and Social Welfare Area of the General Directorate, which organizes regular training activities for its Integral Rehabilitators and Typhlotechnical Instructors, who are directly responsible for the subsequent training of blind and visually impaired users in the handling of all types of typhlotechnical adaptations, instruments and tools for increasing and encouraging their personal autonomy.
a. Training of Integral Rehabilitators
The training of these professionals is undoubtedly one of the basic axes of the attention provided by the ONCE to its members (the blind and visually impaired in their entirety) as this has a direct repercussion on their improvement and fuller qualification in areas of such relevance and of such an essential nature as orientation and mobility, sensorial-perceptive training, visual stimulation (in the case of the visually impaired with some sight), the use of optical, non-optical and electronic aids and, in general, skills for everyday living that have such a direct influence on improving the living conditions and social integration of the blind and visually impaired.
Dating from a Resolution adopted by the General Council of the ONCE in 1998, the Integral Rehabilitator, known as a Rehabilitation Technician (TR), includes in its professional profile not only the competencies of a basic rehabilitation technician but also those of a visual rehabilitation technician, providing an integral rehabilitation service to the user in all the areas mentioned above; hence its importance.
At the present moment, the ONCE has a total of 113 Rehabilitation Technicians, distributed throughout its centres and present all over Spain, within the framework of the Centre's "Rehabilitation Service" (trained by ophthalmologists and optician-optometrists); in turn, these services are co-ordinated by the General Directorate's Personal Autonomy and Social Welfare Area, referred to above.
As can be expected, the professional re-qualification of these professionals is constant and essential if they are to carry out their work in an optimum manner, particularly when it comes to making available to the blind and visually impaired people they train all these techniques, resources and technical instruments that they may need and that are developed, discovered and/or may be invented.
Rehabilitation Technicians receive this training so as to be able to subsequently train these people in personal autonomy, an essential area of life, making it possible for persons with this type of disability.
In addition, they are also responsible for training other professional workers and collaborators who come into contact with these people. Thus the following people are also trained:
- Support people (volunteers, sighted guides, collaborators in general)
- Integrated Education Teachers or the Tutors of the C.R.E.s (Educational Resources Centres for blind or visually impaired children)
- Typhlotechnology and Braille Instructors (I.T.B.)
The training of these trainers has passed through two clearly differentiated stages:
* A first stage, after the adoption of the Resolution referred to above, in which the reciprocal training of technicians devoted initially to a single activity (Basic Rehabilitation or Visual Rehabilitation) was carried out in the area unknown to them.
* In this first stage, 78 Basic Rehabilitation technicians were trained in 220-hour theoretical-practical training courses, in addition to 19 Visual Rehabilitation technicians in courses lasting 700 hours.
* And a second stage, in which new technical experts were trained to give coverage to those ONCE centres where they were not yet available. Up to the present moment, a total of 25 new Rehabilitation Technicians has been trained in two 1,020-hour training courses.
Similarly, the training of 15 low-vision optician-optometrists has been completed, in courses lasting 207 hours.
The complexity of this specific and necessarily prolonged training (due to the scope of the technical knowledge to be acquired) means that only one training course can be conducted per financial year, whenever it is considered necessary, also taking into account the extensive period of practical training under the guidance of tutors to be carried out by trainees in an ONCE centre once their theoretical training has been completed.
For the year 2003 in progress, the implementation of the training activity: "Accessibility in Communication" has been planned, lasting 95 hours, directed at 113 Rehabilitation Technicians from the whole of Spain.
The current distribution of these technicians in the ONCE Centres is shown on the following chart:
Rehabilitation Technicians
Sabadell RC : 6
Alicante CRE : 1
Barcelona CRE : 2
Madrid CRE : 9
Pontevedra CRE : 1
Seville CRE : 4
Algeciras AD : 1
Alicante AD : 2
Almeria AD : 1
Cadiz AD : 1
Cartagena AD : 1
Cordoba AD : 2
Granada AD : 2
Huelva AD : 1
Jaen AD :1
Jerez AD : 1
Malaga AD : 3
San Sebastian AD : 1
Salamanca AD : 2
Tarragona AD : 2
Tenerife AD : 1
Vigo AD : 1
Andalusia TD : 4
Aragon TD : 4
Asturias TD : 2
Balearic Islands TD : 2
Valencia AR TD : 5
Canary Islands TD : 4
Cantabria TD : 1
Catalonia TD : 9
Castile-la-Mancha TD : 4
Castile-Leon TD : 4
Estremadura TD : 2
Galicia TD: 2
La Rioja TD : 1
Madrid TD : 15
Murcia TD : 2
Navarre TD : 1
Basque Country TD : 5
Total : 113
B. Training of Typhlotechnology and Braille Instructors
The training of Typhlotechnology and Braille Instructors (I.T.B.) is characterised by the necessary and permanent implementation of professional recycling activities, particularly as their qualification is also determined by the rapid and unceasing evolution and development of typhlotechnical instruments in recent times.
Nevertheless, not only has this permanent recycling not focussed on a specific and delimited field, such as technology, but has tended to extend to several areas of knowledge, thereby responding to the particular characteristics of the situations of the blind and visually impaired and their educational, professional and social circumstances.
This has meant that the professional profile of the I.T.B. has constantly had to be adapted to the needs of the moment and, as a consequence, their professional training has been an ongoing process since 1987, the year in which the I.T.B. was created and defined.
These training activities, carried out annually, and in which all the I.T.B.s within the ONCE take part on a sequential and continuous basis, are also complemented with the organization of Professional Conferences, meeting points for these professionals, of a shorter duration and more agile nature than the training activities, at which all the novelties that have a direct influence on the lives of the blind or visually impaired relating to Typhlotechnology and Braille are analyzed and make known to everybody.
In connection with the training activities carried out, it should be added that their duration varies between 250 and 500 hours of classes and that the methodology used is eminently practical, being based on practical cases and the handling of new instruments as well as subsequent practical training in ONCE Centres where they can put into practice everything learned on the courses (with the guidance of tutors in the case of new Instructors).
An important part of these professional qualification and re-qualification activities for I.T.B.s are the trainer training pedagogic methodologies and didactic techniques taught, aimed at ensuring that the Instructor knows how to transmit the technical know-how acquired on the course to the end user or professional it is instructing/training.
In this connection, the Typhlotechnology and Braille Instructor must train not only the blind and/or visually impaired person who is going to use a typhlotechnical instrument or adaptation but also the Tutors of the Educational Resources Centres (C.R.E.) referred to above and the numerous professionals and collaborators that provide day-to-day support for ONCE members.
As a final datum that defines the activities carried out by the ONCE in this respect, mention should be made of the fact that, through the aforementioned Personal Autonomy and Social Welfare Area, the number of I.T.B.s trained by the General Directorate of the ONCE in the last 3 years amounts to 88, comprising the 70 I.T.B.s who are regularly recycled every year and the 18 new professionals who have completed their training.
All of this represents a large number of hours of training developed in this Area, taking into account the fact that, as a cyclic and continuous activity, it will continue to be developed at least to the same extent in the future.
Thus, the following training action has been planned for the year 2003: "New Systems for Communication and Access to Information. The Up-dating of Knowledge on Alternative Training Systems: On-Line Training, Self-Training and Self-Study", for 75 Typhlotechnology and Braille Instructors, from the whole of Spain.
The current distribution of these technical experts in the ONCE Centres is as shown in the following chart:
Typhlotechnical Instructors
Cidat : 1
Sabadell RC : 1
Madrid CRE : 6
Alicante CRE : 1
Barcelona CRE : 3
Seville CRE : 2
Pontevedra CRE : 1
Algeciras AD : 1
Alicante AD : 1
Almeria AD : 1
Cadiz AD : 1
Cartagena AD : 1
Cordoba AD : 1
Granada AD : 2
Huelva AD : 1
J. Frontera AD : 1
Jaen AD : 1
Malaga AD : 2
S.C. Tenrife AD : 1
Salamanca AD : 1
San Sebastian AD : 2
Tarragona AD : 2
Vigo AD : 1
General Directorate : 1
Andalusia TD : 2
Aragon TD : 2
Asturias TD : 1
Balearic Islands TD : 1
Valencia AR TD : 2
Canary Islands TD : 2
Cantabria TD: 1
Catalonia TD : 4
Castile-Leon TD : 2
Castile-la-Mancha TD : 2
Estremadura TD : 1
Galicia TD : 2
Madrid TD : 7
Murcia TD : 1
Navarre TD : 1
Basque Country TD : 2
Rioja TD : 1
Total : 70
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