Date: January 6th 2009

Peace Operations Training Institute News

About our new name

For years, you have known us as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research Programme of Correspondence Instruction (UNITAR POCI). We operated under the name “UNITAR POCI” in partnership with UNITAR Geneva. Our partnership with UNITAR ended in June 2008, and we now operate as the Peace Operations Training Institute.

We continue to provide all the same training programmes for students around the world—the same programmes that were welcomed by the United Nations Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (C-34) in their 2008 report to the United Nations General Assembly. We remain dedicated to providing training on United Nations peacekeeping through quality e-learning courses just as we have done for the past fifteen years.

Current students can continue their studies without interruption. Prospective students can continue to sign up for all of our courses—22 in English, 18 in French, 16 in Spanish, and 2 in Portuguese—through our Web site.

We thank you for your support and your continued interest in United Nations peacekeeping training.

Join us on Facebook

The Peace Operations Training Institute now has a Facebook group. If you have a Facebook account, please join us! It’s yet another way for our students to connect with one another.

A message from the Executive Director

Here is a message from Dr. Harvey Langholtz, Executive Director of the Peace Operations Training Institute:

“ There are few experiences I appreciate as much as the opportunity to meet our students serving on UN Peacekeeping Missions. It is always possible for an administrator in the field of distance learning to become caught up in the numbers and the details of our work. With over 10 000 enrolments each month; 22 courses in English, 18 in French, 16 in Spanish, 2 in Portuguese; on-line videos; and an online message board, I could easily become distracted and overwhelmed.

“But one of the hallmarks of our Institute has always been the respect and appreciation we have for each of our students. Almost every day I view our Honour Roll and I see the list of students who have completed their courses and passed their End-of-Course Examinations that day. We graduate roughly 175 per day, and I visualize each one of them. They are in Internet cafés from Abuja to Dhaka, on Mission in UNAMID and UNMIK, at a national peacekeeping training centre in Williamtown, Australia or Santiago, Chile, at UNHQ in New York, or one of thousands of other locations world-wide where our students live and work. They studied each lesson of their courses, and within the past few hours they sat down to their computers and passed their End-of-Course Examinations. They have completed their courses on United Nations Peacekeeping, and they have downloaded their Certificates of Completion.

“It is my pleasure to meet these dedicated students when I visit UN Peacekeeping Missions. These students are universally thankful for the courses we provide, and they ask me to pass their thanks to the individual staff members at the Institute with whom they have dealt and whom they have come to know, and they also ask that I thank the authors of their courses. I find the students simultaneously upbeat and serious, curious and focused. They range from SRSG to cleaner and from General to Private. No matter what their rank or nation, they all share an earnest wish to serve in the interest of peace. My staff and I here at the Peace Operations Training Institute are honoured to work with each one of our students, and we never forget that each name on a long list represents an individual who deserves our respect and individual attention.”

New courses available

We work constantly to expand our list of courses, as well as to make our courses available world-wide to as many peacekeepers as possible. We are pleased to announce that we have released several new translations of our courses into French, Spanish, and Portuguese. We have also begun work on some Arabic translations which should be available this year.

The table below lists all of our current English-language courses, along with the additional languages available for each.

We are proud of our curriculum, and hope that the new translations make it even easier for you to get the training you want and promote peace across the globe. Click here to find the best training programme for you, and sign up for a course today.

From the Registrar’s office

We do our best to provide prompt, helpful service to all our students. Our student support team are constantly working with students via e-mail, telephone, and facsimile. In this section, we introduce one of our student support staff, so you can learn more about the human being on the other side of the computer screen:

“ My name is Vanessa Trochez, and I am the Assistant to the Registrar. I work to serve the student community at the Peace Operations Training Institute, and I speak, read, and write fluently in English and Spanish to better assist our international students. I will most likely be the first person a student will speak with on the phone or correspond with by e-mail when they inquire about the Institute’s programmes, courses, and enrolment and payment processes. I also advise students if they have questions or concerns with their course enrolments, and assist students in accessing their End-of-Course Examinations or their Certificates of Completion should they need help. In addition, I create transcripts and letters of verification of successful completion and/or enrolment.

“It is my pleasure to work with and support our thousands of students and represent the Peace Operations Training Institute on a daily basis.”

A record year for enrolments

The past year set a new record for enrolments. Overall enrolment rose by 28% over 2007, making for a total of nearly 128 000 enrolments, including over 79 000 enrolments from students in Africa! More and more peacekeepers and humanitarian workers are choosing Peace Operations Training Institute distance training as a way to enhance their skills and promote peace world-wide. We are grateful for all our students’ efforts, and we wish you success and good fortune in the coming year.

We are also grateful for the feedback we receive from students. Upon completion of an End-of-Course Examination, every student is invited to submit his or her opinions about the course he or she has just finished. We take your opinions very seriously, and they help our course authors improve future editions of the courses. Submitting feedback is simple: just click the link provided after you submit your End-of-Course Examination. The link also appears in your End-of-Course Examination confirmation e-mail.

As always, you can learn about all our courses and training programmes at our Web site. Look for the next issue of our student newsletter in your inbox in February.