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 Thierry Chalus from the European Commission Directorate General for Health and Food Safety (Head of Sector – Training- Better Training for Safer Food Sector) is a strong advocate of the Better Training for Safer Food Academy and confident of its future development and increasing importance. We asked him to shed some light on what the academy does and how it works.
What is the BTSF Academy ?
The BTSF Academy is a cloud-based Learning Management System (on an open source Moodle-platform) that manages both the blended training offer (face-to-face and online courses) as well as the administration of future and former participants. It is a new product from the BTSF initiative which has been running since February 2018.
What are its objectives? Who is it mainly intended for?
It is to play a major role in the future as the unique on-line system for all trainings organised under the BTSF programme. It will not only host all training resources (training materials and online courses) already available or to be developed in the years to come, but also create the unique channel of information between all main BTSF stakeholders: contractors, beneficiaries and Commission and facilitate training and participant management. Some information will also be addressed to the general public.
The BTSF Academy will offer a more sustained knowledge sharing system through an alumni network enabling participants to keep in touch with each other. It will help in providing more user-friendly statistical tools about BTSF programmes and indicators. In short, it will lift BTSF into the digital era.
What kind of topics does the Academy address?
The BTSF Academy has a multifaceted remit as it will be both an administration management tool and a learning resources sharing point. From a training point of view, it offers access to a full range of information:
- information of a general nature on BTSF, including newsletters, annual reports, leaflets and leaflets that is accessible to any public;
- more targeted and technical information that is addressed to the core audience of BTSF (i.e. staff of competent authorities in both EU and non-EU countries in charge of verifying the enforcement of EU rules in the food and feed, animal health and welfare and plant health areas).
When speaking about face-to-face activities, their scope has expanded and varied considerably, including in more recent years new types of activities such as sustained training missions, since the programme was launched. As of today, more than 40 training programmes are running, covering the entire sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) field, from food safety law to animal disease preparedness and animal welfare rules, up to sustainable use of pesticides and plant health controls. They involve an average number of 6000 participants a year. Thanks to the BTSF Academy, access to these courses has become possible for participants who could not participate directly in one of the face-to-face training courses.
As for on-line learning, the current e-learning BTSF campus trains around 8000 participants a year and includes 10 modules distributed over the full SPS field, available in five EU languages (50 modules in total).
How does it work?
The BTSF Academy works in a collaborative way. Training providers upload and maintain information related to the training agendas and course contents, the training locations and the practical organisation of trainings for the whole duration of their service contracts. Centralising this information in a single entity – the BTSF Academy –greatly helps BTSF National Contact Points (NCP) to circulate the information to their services to invite and select participants. An all-in calendar is also available to facilitate the training courses follow-up and management throughout their implementation. In addition, an internal communication and alert system keeps abreast BTSF stakeholders (training providers, NCPs, participants and Commission departments) of any changes in the execution of the training programmes (new locations, new dates, new contents, etc.). The Commission will benefit from this infrastructure too and be able to strengthen its supervision on BTSF implementation.
Do you foresee any changes or growth in the future?
The development of the BTSF Academy follows a step-by-step approach. The first identified priority was to transfer the existing e-learning modules on a new e-learning campus to enable BTSF beneficiaries to continue to use these learning tools without disruption. This was achieved with success in the first quarter of 2018.
A second stage has now been reached with the launch of a series of new functionalities principally aimed to offer a better governance and easier management of all BTSF training activities. Additional functionalities will be progressively released in 2020 onwards to meet BTSF stakeholders’ further expectations in this regard.
Besides management improvements, it is also important to strengthen and broaden the current e-training offer to respond to the high demand for training supply expressed by BTSF beneficiaries. It is indeed clear that despite our best efforts, access to face-to-face activities is likely to remain limited. Engaging into such a learning management system is a true breakthrough to support the development of several multilingual and more modern on-line training tools such as webinars, video-teaching, serious gaming training and alike over time.
Key data
From 2014 to October 2019, some 38 714 participants took part in BTSF e-learning activities. In 2019 (until October) participants have been 9 757, coming from 52 different countries, 26 EU-Member States and 26 non-EU Countries.
The most popular e-learning course is the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), which attracted 2 446 enrolments, followed by Food Contact Materials (FCM), Rapid Alert System for Feed and Food (RASFF), Food hygiene and control on fishery products and Live Bivalve Molluscs (FISH) and Animal Welfare at slaughter and killing for disease control (AW).
In 2019 (until October), Spain had the highest participation among the Member States, with 1 474 enrolments, participating mostly in EU plant quarantine regime for imports (EUPQ), Prevention, Control and Eradication of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE) and Animal Health Prevention and Controls for Aquaculture Animals (AA) e-learning courses. Portugal was the second most active country, with 788 enrolments, mostly in HACCP, FCM and RASFF. Germany’s most popular e-learning courses are HACCP, RASFF and AW, which are also the most popular in the United Kingdom. In France, participants seem most interested in the HACCP, FISH and FCM courses.
For non-EU countries, the countries with the highest participation are Peru, the Philippines, Egypt and Chile. HACCP remains the most popular course among the participants, just as it is in Member States, followed by RASFF, FISH and AA.
Participants in BTSF e-learning courses – October 2019
Participation from EU countries– October 2019
Participation from non-EU Countries – October 2019
E - learning courses abbreviations
AN : Animal Nutrition
AW : Animal Welfare at slaughter and killing for disease control
AWR : Animal Welfare at slaughter and killing for disease control for Poultry
EUPQ : EU Plant Quarantine Regime for Imports
FISH : Food Hygiene and Controls on Fishery products and Live Bivalve Molluscs (LBMs)
HACCP : Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points
RASFF : Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed
TSE : Prevention, Control and Eradication of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies
FCM : Food Contact Materials regulation
AA : Animal Health Prevention and Controls for Aquaculture Animals
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