Not content with travelling across the UK to keep Christian Salvesen’s drivers working to the highest standards, National Driver Trainer Paul Dorling has returned from an African adventure, where he spent 3 weeks sharing his expertise with colleagues from Malawi and Zambia.
Paul was tasked by Transaid with developing driver qualifications and training for transport operators in the two countries, working with the technical and vocational bodies of both countries.
Driving standards
“Raising the standard of driving in Africa is important for many reasons, and the best way to achieve this is to develop recognised training standards” explains Chris Saunders, CEO of Transaid.
“Better drivers reduce the costs of the operators, which makes the transport industry more competitive. This doesn’t just have benefit for the economy, it also means that new routes get developed which give people in more remote areas access to goods and services that they are currently denied.
“Also, the status of professional driver will mean better livelihoods opportunities in a country where three quarters of the population live on less than $2 a day.
And, crucially, the horrifying road death toll can be reduced.”
Christian Salvesen has supported Transaid for 7 years because it recognises the importance of safe, affordable and efficient transport to people’s daily lives. So when they were asked to provide the expertise for this vital new project it quickly found the man for the job. Paul Dorling has been with Salvesen for 12 years, and is responsible for setting up the role of Driver Trainer within the company and creating many of Salvesen’s training packages.
Culture shock
For three weeks, Paul swapped Glasgow for Mchinji, which is in landlocked Malawi, on the border with Zambia, and it was clear from the start that this was going to be a very different challenge from anything he’d been used to before.
“I didn’t know what to expect. Having been in the forces in different situations in different countries, I’d never been to Africa and it was definitely a culture shock,” he reflects.
“Although it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as you might think from what you see about Africa on TV, it was still a real eye opener.
“I was awestruck and I’ll admit that, on the way from the airport my first thought was ‘What have I let myself in for?’”
Life is undoubtedly hard in Malawi. It is one of the ten least developed countries in the world and life expectancy is just 38. It also suffers from one of the highest rates of road accidents in the world, which has a huge human and economic cost.
But it is also a country of great beauty, with people who never let these obstacles prevent them from building strong communities and providing for their family, however difficult that might be. When he observed this, Paul’s initial apprehension quickly turned to respect.
“I thought, what am I worried about in my life when these people are going about their business as normal, under these circumstances?’”
Straight to work
It was straight down to business on arrival, with representatives from the technical and vocational associations of Zambia and Malawi, and trainers from the national vocational training authority keen to get started on the task in hand.
“Everyone in the group agreed that driving standards were low to non-existent and were eager to get things done to raise them. They felt that, by developing this qualification, they were contributing to better standards for their countries.”
Paul used the NVQ2&3 standards for Large Goods Vehicles as starting points, and this gave the group a head start.
But it’s not as simple as just transferring UK qualifications. Conditions are so different that the standards need to be developed by Malawians and Zambians, for Malawians and Zambians in order for them to work. So the next stage was to start adapting the NVQs.
“All were keen to get the right content”, said Paul. “But this did get a bit frustrating, with hours spent just deciding the titles of the courses.”
Although this meant taking things at a much slower pace than Paul would be used to in the UK, this stage is ultimately the most important. The standards have to be founded on content that the people that are going to be working with them in years to come are happy with, and they have to be made appropriate for the language and circumstances in-country.
Paul let the group do the talking and facilitated the process to arrive at a framework that everyone was happy with. His patience paid off. By the end of his three weeks, the group had achieved its aim, which was to complete the Level 2 Standard for Professional Drivers, containing 11 standards and covering all the tasks to be completed by a driver.
“The group worked together very well and we had some good laughs”, said Paul. “There were some language barriers, as some of the group spoke very heavily accented English, but no worse than it can be sometimes as a Southerner living in Glasgow!”
“It was good to be welcomed and I was never made to feel uncomfortable or out of it.”
The only thing that Paul found a problem was how to fill the evenings.
“It’s dark at 5.15 and there’s not a lot to do. One evening, we had a film night for the group in my room and watched Pirates of the Caribbean, and I got a crate of beers in, which everyone enjoyed.”
“One of my recommendations is to develop Hazardous Materials training courses”, said Paul. “In Europe, you have to take a City & Guilds course, with 9 different modules on top of that.”
“There’s no equivalent. At the moment, the only training that drivers get is to put their headlights on when they’re carrying petrol, and put their headlights on and not drive in built-up areas when they’re carrying explosives.” Chris Saunders’ praised Paul’s efforts, saying “Paul’s technical expertise was invaluable, but what was equally important was the way that he adapted to a very different working situation, let the group do their own thinking, and brought out the best of their ideas and experience to arrive at the starting point for a set of Malawian and Zambian standards – not an easy thing to do.”
“This is the first step in the development of a group of skilled, professional commercial transport drivers in these countries and Transaid are committed to taking Paul’s work forward until we achieve this goal. Having got the curriculum agreed and in place we now have to start on the practicalities, the most important of which is to start training the driver trainers who will be teaching this curriculum, which will almost certainly require further input from Paul and his colleagues in the industry” he adds.
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