Practice Firm
OVERVIEW
A Practice firm (PF) works like a real company. Being present on the international market of PFs means constantly sustaining business relations with other practice enterprises. According to their line of business the staff will tackle all real life business cases – they will deal with supplies, marketing the products and services offered by the practice firm, push sales, do accounting tasks and take personnel management decisions and they have to cope with all the administrative and commercial craftsmanship one needs in a true business.
Our Practice firm MiraQs is member of the Tunisian Practice Firms Network (REET)
The Training Environment
To make the experience as realistic as possible, each learning space in APBS Practice Firm (MIRAQS) is divided into different sections that represent the different departments of a business such as reception, purchasing, human resources, operations and marketing.
The PF approach emphasizes learning in four key areas:
– Ownership:Trainees take responsibility for their own learning.
– Experiential: Trainees’ learning is authentic and realistic.
– Cooperative: Trainees learn with and from others and understand the dynamics of working as part of a team.
– Reflective: Trainees experience the consequences of their decisions and apply that learning to future challenges.
Benefits of the Practice Firm
Preparing Entry into Real World of Work
APBS Practice Firm (MIRAQS) prepares trainees for their eventual entry into the real world of work. It puts the theory they have learned in the lecture hall to practice in a work-based environment and is often
• Administration Skills
• Accounting & Finance
• Digital Skills
• Social & Digital Media
• Human Resource Management
• Marketing & Sales
• Purchasing & Negotiating
• Business Planning & Communications
• International Commerce
Academic skills & Self-development
APBS Practice Firm reinforce academic skills and achievement, reignite interest in education, and raise the desire for self-development and the pursuit of lifelong learning.
Be prepared to choose a career
APBS trainees can try out different jobs and tasks and see where their career could take them. Through developing and managing their own enterprises, trainees learn professionalism, business acumen,
How does a Practice Firm work ?
Learning by Doing
From the viewpoint of training the practice firm allows for true-to-business practice and professional and didactic reappraisal.
This simulation of the economic reality supports the trainees’ creativity, self-starting qualities, entrepreneurship, responsibility, teamwork, language skills – in a nutshell, those key qualifications that are also relevant for life-long learning.
Process & Tasks in the Practice Firm
• Correspondence, using the most up-to-date software
• Dealing with incoming mail
• Using the telephone, the fax, internet
• Working on the PC, using graphics software
• Designing advertising media, like for example crafting catalogues
• Preparing and giving presentations
• Dealing with customers, suppliers, business partners
• Purchasing and selling
• Importing and exporting
• Dispatching and customs clearance
• Invoicing
• Money transfers with domestic and foreign business partners
• Banking business
• Entering business operations into the books
• Warehouse accounting and fixed assets accounting
• Calculating wages, salaries and commissions
• Cost accounting
• Settling the accounts with the revenue office and the national health insurance
• Hosting visitors and business partners
• Other business operations and tasks
• Using the most up to date software
• Filing and archiving documents
Key Players
Trainees
In APBS Practice Firm (PF), the trainees are the ‘employees’ and ‘managers’ of their business. They work in teams undertaking the tasks required by a particular PF department; for example, Finance and Purchasing, Administration, Human Relations, and Sales and Marketing.
Trainers
The APBS certified trainer facilitates all the Practice Firm activities: motivating, challenging and supporting the trainees as they take on roles that are often very different from their usual workplace skills learning activities. Initially the trainer will take a strong role in directing and structuring the Practice Firm activities,
Partners
“La Direction du développement et de la coopération (DDC)” is the organ of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAE) in charge of international cooperation. In addition to democratic transition support, the DDC offers
« Le ministère de la formation professionnelle et de l’emploi » The overall mission is to ensure the development of the Government’s employment policy and to ensure its implementation and the evaluation of its results.
“Helvartis” is a non-profit organization that manages the Swiss network of Practice Firms, consisting about 60 training companies where fifteen employees are working to set up and develop new companies in Switzerland and abroad.
“Swisscontact” is an independent Swiss foundation, close to the private sector and dedicated to international development cooperation. It has about 800 employees in 25 countries and has been stimulating economic, social and ecological
“La Chambre de Commerce et d’Industrie Tuniso-Suisse (CCITNCH)” is an independent body that promotes economic and trade relations within an approach based on the exchange and development of two-way investment.
“Le Réseau des Entreprises d’Entrainement de Tunisie « ReeT »” is a non-profit organization that holds in Tunisia the concept of “ee” training companies based on the pedagogy of Learning by Doing.
The ReeT governs Tunisian training companies under the supervision of Helvartis, the Swiss Central of Business Practice Companies which delivers the certification.
The Reet is also accredited by the Europen-PEN International.