Members of the community who wish to learn various trades and the professional occupations necessary for the future employment in the construction of ECO Villages, will be able to register for Competency Based Training (CBT) education programmes sourced through local/government partners.  Such courses will include: concreting, labouring, electrical wiring, plumbing, agriculture, farming, logistics, distribution and every aspect of sustainable building. Each “trade” will be provided by fully qualified professional Building Contractors and Trade Professionals.  Each “trainee” will have the opportunity to learn, directly on the job, and once training is completed then they will have endless employment opportunities.

It differs from other non-related approaches in that the unit of learning is extremely fine grained. Rather than a course or a module for every individual skill/learning outcome, known as a competency, is one single unit. Learners work on one competency at a time, which is likely a small component of a larger learning goal. The student is evaluated on the individual competency, and only once they have mastered it do they move on to others. After that, higher or more complex competencies are learned to a degree of mastery and isolated from other topics. Another common component of competency-based learning is the ability to skip learning modules entirely if the learner can demonstrate they already have mastered a prerequisite skill. That can be done either through prior learning assessment or formative testing.

Competency-based learning is learner-focused and works naturally with independent study and with an instructor in the role of facilitation. Learners often find different individual skills more difficult than others. This learning method allows a student to learn those individual skills they find challenging at their own pace, practising and refining as much as they like. Then, they can move rapidly through other skills to which they are more adept. These training programmes can be used for hands on professions, such as:

-Farming & Agriculture

-Management, logistics, distribution.

-Building Traineeships (concreting, bricklaying, carpentry, cabinetry etc.)

Whilst students are on job sites developing their skills within or close to their community, they will be aiding in the development of their community or surrounding communities.  Maintenance programmes can be run to repair and build extensions to existing utilitarian buildings, thus restoring vital services (Police, Fire, and Hospital buildings) to these communities. These maintenance programmes can be managed by quality contractors and have the assistance of CBL/ CBL&T students as to develop their skills whilst on attendance on these sites. Open University courses and basic elementary courses are readily available online.  Course participants can access the online courses through the computers provided at the community education facilities. These courses allow for a student to start and finish a course through the use of an internet connection using a computer or a tablet (XO Tablet, One Laptop Per Child foundation www.xotablet.com.com.

Higher levels of education can raise developing countries’ productivity significantly. Recent studies have shown that an additional year of average secondary or university level education in a country raises national output by 19 per cent. As globalization increases the demand for higher-level skills is growing in number and young people in the developing world find themselves without the relevant knowledge to participate and contribute to this economic growth.

By providing access to online courses in rural areas through the access to computers or tablets connected to the internet, young people within communities will be able to contribute to the economic growth of their country through employment opportunities or business strategies learnt from their online education courses, chosen by them.

Within the ecovillage, computers will be set up within the common building for the community to use.

Within the semi-rural planning of the ecovillage it will incorporate a learning centre within the development which will promote community members to attend part time and fulltime classes to develop their academic capabilities through competency based training programmes and free online education certificates. All the while being able to tend to the needs of the community permaculture food forest and other duties.