Distance Learning Gate from Türkiye - Green Skills Award 2024 Finalist
Turkish civil servants are tackling climate change and training needs at the same time under a new initiative of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye – the Distance Learning Gate.
Introduced in 2020, the Distance Learning Gate is a new digital training platform for staff development in Turkish public institutions. The platform enables civil servants to customise their training provision in 21st century lifelong learning skills in line with their professional and personal needs. Courses including Computing and Data Science, Education and Psychology, Health, Environment, Family and Social Life, and Energy can now be delivered via the Internet to civil servants around the country.
The project benefits public officials by enabling them to take courses when it suits them, saves money previously spent on transport and teaching venues, and massively reduces carbon emissions associated with delivering training in physical locations.
“Over 900,000 people have taken online courses, saving more than 265,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – the equivalent of planting 11 million pine trees,” says Kübra Ünsal, a training specialist with the Human Resources Office of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye
“The courses directly contribute to sustainable development goals and significantly raise awareness of climate change and acquisition of green skills with public employees”
The project is now one of ten finalists in the European Training Foundation’s Green Skills Awards 2024.
The award is a global initiative, first introduced in 2021. It provides ideas and inspiration from all over the world about innovation happening thanks to individuals and institutions. The initiative has become a source of good practices that can inspire people everywhere to make real change happen in creating circular and carbon-neutral economies and societies.
The Turkish scheme was introduced after a survey focusing on training and development concluded that switching to distance learning would have major educational, social and environmental benefits. Over 4.1 million public employs from nearly 1,600 public institutions can benefit from the Distance Learning Gate, where they can access a multitude of training materials.
“The platform develops public employees’ professional and personal knowledge, skills and competencies while raising their awareness of the environment in the context of green transformation,” Kübra adds.
The online approach enables managers of the system to swiftly respond to new training needs. The “Environment and Zero Waste” module, for example, focuses on types of waste, industrial waste, and deposit management. “Energy Efficiency in Daily Life, enables civil servants to advise on better use of resources at home, in the workplace and transportation.
New courses are added as knowledge of green needs increases: this year, the Human Resources Office held meetings with stakeholders to prepare training programmes on Water Conservation and Disasters, particularly floods and fires. To increase accessibility, sign language and subtitle support is also offered for all course materials. The Distance Learning Gateway has proved a success, reaching nearly a quarter of the country’s public employees, via 11 training programmes, 58 videos and nearly eight hours of content.
“The project can easily be adapted and implemented in other countries, creating a cross-border, long-term impact on green awareness and skills development - while reducing emissions,” Küba says.
“The remarkable reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, and increase in environmental awareness, shows how actively Türkiye is contributing to a greener, more sustainable world.”