A wealth of European experience

The Conference and Training Centre of the Agricultural Bank of Greece is a fully residential establishment devoted to adult learning and development.

It has been constructed and equipped with the financial and technical support of the European Union (Regulation 815/84) to provide appropriate infrastructure for quality education and training in all sectors of the economy as well as IT (information technologies). In addition to responding to the training needs of an extensive number of companies including the Agricultural Bank, it has, during the last twenty years, acquired considerable experience in running international training projects through its involvement, as partner and coordinator, in major EU programmes and initiatives such as the Mediterranean Integrated Programmes (MIP Information technologies and agriculture), COMETT, PETRA, TEMPUS, NOW, ADAPT, LEONARDO DA VINCI.

The Conference and Training Centre of ATEbank has been officially certified by the National Centre for the Accreditation of Continuous Infrastructure (EKEPIS) as a Centre of life long learning and adult training.

We underline specifically our involvement in the following European Programmes :

1986-1992

Integrated Mediterranean Programmes. The project involved the training of approximately 1000 agricultural cooperatives employees in the use of P/C along with the acquisition and installation of the P/Cs in the relevant agricultural cooperatives.

1987-1995

COMETT. The European Community Programme as cooperation between universities and industries regarding training in the field of Technology.

In the framework of the COMETT programme, the Conference and Training Centre established and run for ten years the AGRO-UETP, a sectoral partnership of Universities and Enterprises, which undertook a variety of training and development projects including :

Organization and high level international seminars in :

• woodtechnology,
• quality of olive oil ,
• dairy and fish industry,
• red wine technology,
• acquaculture,
• greenhouse technology,
• biotechnology in agriculture, and
• agrofood industries.
• Organization of Transnational exchanges of university students and staff members of enterprises.
• Development of Training Materials in the area of Biotechnology, computer graphics and training of trainers.
• D-Lab stands for an educational program, whose aim is to develop an e-learning training tool in order to serve bank employees. The program is based on new technology and P/C networks. The fact that we have developed a network of co-operation with academic specialists, professors and scientists gives as an extra advantage and enables us to cover a great phasma of professional and scientific subjects.

1990

Programme PETRA.Training of young entrepreneurs in activities of the primary sector.

1992

Programme TEMPUS. The project concerned the co-operation between Institutions of Higher in the European Community and Universities of former eastern European countries respectively. The Training Centre participated in co-operation with the Agricultural University of Athens, the University of Monpellier and the University of Sophia.

1997-2000

ADAPT. In the framework of ADAPT, the Conference and Training Centre of the Agricultural Bank of Greece participated in the "QUALITY BANK" and "EUROTRAIN" projects. The "Quality Bank" dealt with issues of quality in the banking sector while the "Eurotrain" with the issues related to the introduction of the Euro in the Greek economic life. Both projects developed, through international collaboration, training packages / materials and seminars for trainers.

1992-2000

E.U. programme NOW. was a five-year lasting programme about the equality of opportunities. One of the prerequisites was the transnational co-operation. The first programme included training projects on the following topics:

a) Training of trainers b) Marketing, c) Aquaculture, d) Agrotourism.

In a second phase we developed the programme ''AR1STI'' in co-ordination with partners from France and Italy. The main concept of the project was to support female activities of long-distance regions of Greece by providing them with information, education and contact with career paths. These aims are promoted through :

• The establishment of two support offices (support office of female agricultural activities, ARISTInet database, www.ate.gr/ar1sti/htm/home.html ).
• The transaction of innovative educational seminar of business development "KALLIPATIRA" (database, www.ando.gr/kallipatira/index.htm ).
• The transaction of innovative educational seminar of 600 hours for the women-members of the local agritouristic cooperatives (Ag. Germanos, Prespes).
• The participation of women in sectorial exhibitions.
• The creation of special promotion products, such as compact disk promoting the agrotourism in Prespes Lakes.
• The elaboration and presentation of a study referring to a pilot implementation of tele-education at the educational program of "The Community of Information".
• The participation in the transnational net of AR1STI (members: C.R.D.F.F. DIJON FRANCE, A.M.M.E-FUNCHAL MADERE PROTUGAL, FORMAPER, Organisme de formation de la Chambre de Commerce d' Industrie, d'Artisanat, et d' Agriculture, MILAN, ITALIE, Training Centre of the Agricultural Bank of GREECE).

1997-2006

LEONARDO DA VINCI. As regards to the Leonardo da Vinci programme, the Conference and Training Centre interacted with partners from Italy, England and Ireland in order to implement an educational programme entitled "SELF STUDY IN BIOTECHNOLOGY". This training material consists of written material, video cassettes and computer based training in Greek and English language.

We also took part in the "TRAINING CANNING FOOD PROFESSIONALS" programme in co-operation with Italian, Spanish and Portuguese partners. The aim of the specific project was to provide a high standard level of education to the officials of canning industries & relevant enterprises.

Since 2003, our Centre participates in the "TRANSNATIONAL CONFERENCE QUALITY NETWORK", which fosters the exchange of know-how and expertises on quality issues and procedures in Conference Tourism.\

In the frame of the Network certain actions were taken, where experts shared their knowledge with partners on how to run events and congresses successfully, operating according to quality standards.

The know-how observations of special interest for the staff of the Conference and Training Centre focused on Management, Marketing and Customer issues. As a result of their involvement, specific actions have been developed as well as a customer satisfaction questionnaire with the aim to ensure feedback that will help the Centre to improve its quality standards.