eLearning course on “Local Self-Government Reform and Decentralization of Power” was implemented during May-June for local self-government officials of the Dnipropetrovsk oblast within the framework of the Community of Practice “Innovations and Best Practices of Local Self-Government”. The e-course was developed according with the Memorandum on Cooperation between Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council/ Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration and the Swiss-Ukrainian Decentralization Support Project in Ukraine DESPRO in partnership with the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Institute of Public Administration of the National Academy of Public Administration.

The key ideas of the course were to unite practitioners from local self-government in Dnipropetrovsk region; provide an opportunity for the participants to discuss the most topical issues of territory development and community involvement; provide the participants with access to expert counselling at different levels; create conditions for the course participants to generate new ideas in solving local development problems; elaborate approaches for the Community participants to acquire new competences through participation in eLearning.

The target audience included local self-government officials, civil servants, local council deputies, representatives of NGOs in Dnepropetrovsk region.

The presented e-course was not a traditional training; it combined elements of education, counselling, creation of Communities of Practice and advanced training.

Before the e-course the team of tutors and experts conducted five face-to-face workshops for the potential participants in Dnipropetrovsk, Pavlograd, Kryvyi Rih, Nikopol and Dniprodzerzhynsk; each of them was attended by about 200 persons. Those were presentation workshops on organizational and technical specifics of the e-course. During the workshops, the participants had an opportunity to get answers to the questions about the characteristics of the various types of training activities, practical tasks and testing.

The course was held for 1.5 months (from April 27 to June 14, 2015) and had the following structure: Start Module; Module 1 – New Regional Policy, Local Self-Government Reform and Decentralization of Power; Module 2 – Formation of Capable Local Communities; Module 3 – Fiscal Decentralization; Module 4 – Cooperation of Communities and Instruments for Sustainable Local Development in the Context of Decentralization; Module 5 - Public Participation in Territory Management; Final Module.

A toolset of the eLearning platform was used in order to develop and enhance the creative work of the Communities of Practices, including: facilitation of forum discussions, targeted communication of tutors and facilitators with the participants, testing system (module /unit tests, evaluation (by tutors) of practical exercises fulfilled in teams, evaluation of activities in the forums.

During the eLearning, the participants discussed the most topical issues of local self-government reform in Ukraine, namely: the problem of dual power in the territory and creation of executive bodies /agencies of local councils; village head as a representative of the executive bodies of a council in the village; local budgets; experience in implementing strategies and projects of local communities cooperation; public participation in the formulation, adoption and implementation of decisions on amalgamation of local /territorial communities of villages, settlements /towns and cities.

The key feature of the e-course was the development of practical skills in implementation of the processes of association of local communities through the implementation of a cross-cutting practical exercise: working in teams with the templates for preparation of documents on the formation of an amalgamated community. The cross-cutting exercise aimed at developing an algorithm of creating capable communities consisted of four stages: 1 – simulation of associated local communities, 2 – schedule for local /territorial communities association, 3 – SWOT-analysis of the challenges and potential of an associated local /territorial community in terms of closer cooperation, 4 – characteristics of public participation in the territory development.

Before the beginning of the e-course, four districts were selected as the pilot (experimental) ones. Besides the main practical task (exercise), those teams prepared draft normative legal acts of local self-government bodies for each stage of the voluntary association of communities.

Totally, 894 participants enrolled in the e-course, including: 18% of representatives of local councils, 15% - of district councils, and 42% - of village or town councils, 8% - representatives of executive power, 5% - representatives of NGOs. It was a real challenge for the e-course team that 79% of the participants had no experience in eLearning.

Most of the participants were motivated to participate in the e-course as they wanted to have professional growth (3%), self-education (23%), and willingness to take an active part in the process of creating capable communities (20%).

Throughout the eLearning process, expert support was provided to the participants, and for that purpose specialized forums were open. Over 1000 questions and answers were viewed in the Experts’ Room, while in the Room of Representatives Regional Office of Reforms – more than 260 questions; in the Legal Aid Bureau – almost 200 questions.

The participants brought into focus the need for organizational and methodological support of the process of communities’ amalgamation, and they imposed that task on the regional offices of reforms, NAPA and its regional institutes, and on the regional council.

782 persons have finished the eLearning. 684 (77%) of the participants have successfully completed the e-course (their score was over 50 points), and they will receive the state Certificates of advanced training.

On June 15, 2015, the conference was held in Dnipropetrovsk Regional Institute of Public Administration of NAPA discussing the results of the e-course “Local Self-Government Reform and Decentralization of Power", which summarized the eLearning and outlined the prospects for further work. During the conference, a framework agreement was signed for the implementation in Zaporizhzhya region of the experience of eLearning on formation of capable local communities, which was successfully implemented in Dnipropetrovsk region in April-June 2015.

KireYeva Ol’ha

PhD in Public Administration, Associate Professor, Chair of Philosophy, Sociology of Public Administration, Dnipropetrovsk Regional Institute of Public Administration (DRIPA) of the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA)