The advent of the Internet has changed education structures around the world. Students can study now at their own respective pace and time, with interactive content. This invaluable opportunity has transformed the paradigm of traditional education. Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (SENA), the National Service of Learning, is the most important institution for training and capacity building in Colombia, and it understands this paradigm shift well.

Designated as the state’s official training institution, SENA was established in 1957 as a joint initiative of workers, industry owners and the Catholic Church, with support from the Organización Internacional del Trabajo (OIT), the International Workers Organization. Since its inception, SENA has served the Colombian nation well, as an independent, national, public institution, with financial autonomy, assigned to the Ministry of Social Protection.

The primary objective of SENA is to increase and improve the educational resources available to Colombians by providing professional development for working professionals, continuing education, job training and technical training for individuals who seek work. The reach and impact of SENA is broad and deep: the organization serves 100% of the Colombian territory, and currently hosts 278 facilities and 114 training centers in 1,099 municipalities across major cities. Each year the careers and lives of four million people are improved by SENA.

In 2003, the organization implemented an e-Learning program, using the full Blackboard Academic Suite™, to train professionals and offer capacity-building courses to Colombians who have difficulty accessing higher education. The services offered by the organization through its Blackboard^® deployment, coupled with Blackboard ASP^SM Hosting and Blackboard Training, have provided working Colombians with tremendous benefits.

When SENA implemented its e-Learning program, the organization had 200 tutors, 86 training modules and a virtual library developed by the organization itself, which reached 27,000 people. These programs grew so quickly, however, that by 2006, SENA had enrolled 495,000 Colombians into distance virtual education courses. Currently, SENA has 1,300 tutors and 400 training modules with durations of 40 to 200 hours. These courses were developed almost entirely by SENA, and contain modules that offer fast results and enable students to obtain accredited training certifications in specific vocations.

According to participants in the SENA e-Learning program, a primary advantage of virtual distance learning courses is that they enable students to enroll and participate from anywhere in the country—there are no limitations on a student’s geographical location or time schedule. Furthermore, the flexibility of e-Learning programs also empowers students to strengthen their skills with, and knowledge about, people from other areas of a city or regions of the country. Virtual online learning promotes access to technology and information, and helps support the regions that typically have been marginalized.

SENA also provides students and instructors with the latest technological resources, such as distance learning labs, which provide results to participants in real-time. Along with these new resources, the organization provides bilingual training through a real-time voice recognition tool and the electronic submission of certificates by e-mail.

A further reason for the organization’s success is, since deploying the Blackboard Academic Suite in 2003, SENA has developed and implemented a training model that promotes the advancement of technology in Colombia’s industrial sector. This year SENA will train one million people in virtual online courses and double the computers made available to students, increasing the number of computers from 20,000 to 40,000, as well as offer free access to the Internet from anywhere in the country.

By partnering with Blackboard ASP Hosting and Blackboard Training to create its easily accessible and comprehensive e-Learning program, SENA has achieved its strategic e-Learning goal of increasing growth by 300% each year. More importantly, perhaps, in the three most recent customer satisfaction surveys, SENA received an 83% satisfaction rating and was ranked by the majority of Colombians as the country’s most well-respected learning institution.