A friend just shared that his son’s school is offering online swimming classes. The children have been taken through the classes (because the school had already taken the fee for sports classes) and have even been given a certificate of completion!

I had written the following post a couple of years ago as a satire on how training & development is viewed in some organisations, only to see this is a reality now, howsoever ridiculous.

Do give a thought. When it comes to your learning investment, are you busy taking the equivalent of online swimming lessons and feeling great about the certificates you are collecting, or are you actually learning a skill?

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Training plan

Key competency focus:  Swimming skills

Modules

• Warming into the subject:  The story of  Archimedes and Eureka! –  20 mins
• Starting with the Why –  ‘Why I want to swim’ – Table discussion and group sharing:  45 mins
• Evolutionary history: How life started on Earth in water; early organisms, evolution of land creatures from aquatic creatures ( Exercise: If I were an aquatic animal, which one would I be – Flipcharts) :  90mins
• The science of Buoyancy: Key scientific terms and principles: Archimedes principle, up-thrust, fluid density, displacement, surface tension, ballast: 120 mins
• Key strokes (videos and simulations): 90minutes
• The Swimming Stars –  Sporting greats, their records, styles and best practices: 60 mins
• Wrap up

(We have put our entire staff through a full day training on swimming and clocked 12,000 hrs. of employee training. We also run refresher training every year).