How we Teach Others Matters
Aleksandar Andreeski from the Public Revenue Office (PRO), Republic of North Macedonia, attended a CEF learning event which engaged tax officials in a comprehensive, experiential learning process that contributed to building knowledge and skills required to effectively develop confidence and skills for delivering dynamic, engaging and effective learning activities, and strengthen their ability to share knowledge domestically and internationally. As an afterthought Mr. Andreeski reflects on the personal values that he gained by participating at the event.
“As part of the course requirements we were asked to deliver a presentation on a subject related to our work. For me this task was an opportunity to present my ideas, efforts and papers which have been in the drawer for a long time. By using examples from my work, I presented a project where we are trying to apply compliance and risk management and raise awareness of its benefits among our employees as well as other target groups that are affected by this project (legal entities and individuals). It is a new project that we are working on and it is important that we educate the target audience about the project’s implications.
I was the first presenter and I was happy with my performance, receiving positive feedback both from the lecturer and fellow participants on the structure and delivery of the presentation and the way of sharing information. I will also use this very constructive feedback to further improve my presentation skills. I mentioned in my presentation that the process of planning a training course is similar to the GPS navigation system: if we want to make progress, we must use all of our tools and methods to be more productive and successful. And it is the same with becoming a better presenter – one needs to take on board any advice he can get.
After the event I prepared an article summarizing the main take-aways from this event. It was published on our Intranet communication site and made visible and accessible to every employee at the PRO. I also submitted an official report to the PRO Director, HRM manager and Head of our Tax Academy with recommendations how we can use this experience and make our training courses more effective, using modern and interesting ways of teaching. For example, introducing game-based tools such as Kahoot! in our events would be a creative and fun way of engaging younger staff members in our organization when training them in fiscal matters. The Tax Academy accepted my recommendations and included the topic of Training of Trainers in their training plan for 2019.
I have only positive experience from attending this event and I would recommend it to any of my colleagues. It was an opportunity to hear new things and to be able to share experience with other participants. I hope that one day I will take part in a CEF learning event in the capacity of a tax expert and share the progress and lessons learned in my practice with other participants.
As for the organizational aspect of the event, everything was just perfect.”