We at ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG knew – the digital future is now! Digital technologies and possibilities improve our education and make us more independent and flexible. One of the most important points in the conversion of classroom teaching to digitalised teaching was the self-determined access of trainers and trainees to teaching materials and interaction with them. Digital learning enables a new form of collaborative learning and working in our apprenticeships. The cornerstone is good education and training, for more digital skills, digitally equipped and networked training centres, and an open culture of innovation.
We were able to realise a record intake of 643 apprentices within the time span of the COVID-19 pandemic starting with the year 2020, with our more than 120 years of training history. A learning management platform was set up for the apprentices, enabling trainers and apprentices to use it, and the support service was intensified. Our journey continues - Next Level Lehre. Read more...
Our goal is to train tomorrow's professionals so we strive to maintain high standards in our apprenticeship training programme. As a result, we have been investing in our apprenticeship training programme for many years. Our programme includes weekly meetings, site visits, training plans and an app as well as a welcome day, recurring feedback talks, private tutoring, bonuses for good performance and apprentice social events. Furthermore, we try to broaden the horizons of our apprentices beyond their technical training.
We brought two unique groups together, apprentices and homeless people, with a corporate social responsibility (CSR) project in cooperation with Obdach Wien. After a workshop, our apprentices spent ‘action days’ in the facilities. The project achieved the envisaged socio-political and company training goals. The apprentices acquired social competences, questioned stereotypes and reduced fear of contact. Thus, in addition to the creativity and high degree of innovation of the project, sustainability with a significant social impact was also guaranteed. Read more...
EAfA awards – Apprentices
Apprentice: Mr Evangelos Pouftas
School: OAED EPAS SERRES VET Apprenticeship School
Company: Kotoula Pol. Anastasia
Country: Greece
My name is Evangelos Pouftas and I am currently working as an apprentice for Kotoula Anastasia P., a small accounting office located in Serres, Greece. I started my apprenticeship programme during the COVID-19 pandemic that has modified the work environment and the way businesses function.
When I started working, I had to quickly adjust to the new measures imposed by the COVID-19 health protocols and find solutions for problems caused by the pandemic. I am very proud that I was able to use innovative modern technologies to build a new database for the office’s clients. I also helped many clients, primarily companies, digitise most of their work and enter a new era of online services by setting up digital technologies in their workplaces to remain competitive even during lockdowns. Read more...
Virtual Dawn is empowering people around the world to create Virtual Reality content. These tools are being used in Unity Game engine and contain the codes and the contents that are used to create Virtual Dawn simulations and games. The people who work with Virtual Dawn get a chance to create a project they want as part of their workplace training. So far, this has been a very good way to give creative minds a nice way to get to know Virtual Dawn. If the "training" piece is good enough, it can be next Virtual Dawn software and the member of the team who started it, benefits from it significantly.
Virtual Dawn has been working on this method for over 12 months and will keep on doing this with future members of the team. Check out the link for the video one of our team members decided to create on how the game looks. Social Media
Investing in low-carbon infrastructure and promoting sustainability initiatives, AKMI has become a market leader with a presence throughout Greece (Athens, Piraeus, Thessaloniki, Crete, Larissa, Rhodes, Chalkida and Glyfada). AKMI’s learning experience has been offered for 50 years, now on 16 campuses with 32 000 m2 of facilities that feature modern learning and social spaces including fully equipped auditoriums, 340 award-winning high-tech laboratories, and dormitories with dining halls.
With 14 fields of study and 107 different specialties supported by 860 staff members, AKMI offers a dynamic professional start to 14 000 learners annually, fostered through strong links with companies that ensure a high potential for employment opportunities. In terms of internationalisation, AKMI is a member of the European Association of Institutes for Vocational Training (EVBB) and the European Training Foundation’s (ETF’s) Network of Excellence. It has links to 250+ partners in the EU, Africa and Asia, and participates in pilot staff and learner mobility projects between the EU and Africa, and the EU and the Western Balkans. Read more...
Country: United Kingdom
Professor Linda Clarke is Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of the Production of the Built Environment (ProBE), University of Westminster, London and expert to the European Construction Social Dialogue Working Group, Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Youth. She has extensive experience in comparative research on VET, employment, wage relations, equality and labour across Europe.
Her recent work, focussing on climate change, includes: the EC-funded project ‘Inclusive VET for Low Energy Construction (VET4LEC)’ covering 10 European countries; and integrating climate literacy into the construction trades in Europe. Her publications include: ‘Overcoming diverse approaches to vocational education and training to combat climate change: the case of low energy construction in Europe’ with Sahin-Dikmen M. and Winch C., Oxford Review of Education, 46/5, 2020; and ‘Knowledge, Skills and Competence in the European Labour Market: What’s in a Vocational Qualification?’ with Winch C. and Brockmann M., Routledge, 2011. Read more...
The Entrepreneurial School - TES, JA Europe award
Vocational Education Competence Centre Riga State Technical School
Country: Latvia
Riga State Technical School is a vocational education institution which offers vocational secondary education programmes as well as individual vocational education programmes. The school has 36 accredited vocational education programmes in technical engineering as well as vocational development and further training programmes, educating specialists for almost all sectors of the Latvian economy. Technical training includes adult education programmes. Experienced business teachers regularly share their knowledge and insights, and advise others on entrepreneurship education.
We have launched collaborative plans to develop the entrepreneurial capacity of teachers in different subjects. The school’s long-term plan is focused on systemic activities promoting entrepreneurship, moving towards the involvement of the widest possible number of students in activities and emphasising socially responsible and economically appropriate actions regardless of profession. Read more...
European Social Fund Plus (ESF/ESF+) award
Project: Training of food production operators
Organisation: Piedmont Region
Managing Authorities: Piedmont Management and Control System Authority, Regional Operational Programme (ROP), European Social Fund (ESF) (Autorità di Gestione POR FSE Piemonte)
Country: Italy
Through this project, our association aims at promoting a culture of sustainability in the approach to food consumption, and to transfer this culture to the paths our young people take.
We wish to guide them towards an eco-friendly and ethical approach to consumption and towards more eco-friendly and sustainable agri-food processing. This approach builds on our mission to care for the earth’s bounty and to preserve and enhance raw materials, regions and cultures. The project includes plant cultivation using two aeroponic growing systems and the application of innovative processing techniques along the agri-food chain that allows our young students to acquire specific skills in plant production, sensory and qualitative analysis, primary and secondary processing, food preservation in drying cabinets and ovens, grinding of organic cereals with stone mills, cooking using multifunctional food processing benches, and transformation of organic waste. Read more...
Erasmus+, Innovative curricula for the green transition award
Project: Veteran tree management skills certification (VETcert)
Organisation: Stiftelsen Pro Natura
Country: Sweden
VETcert is raising the standard of veteran tree care throughout Europe. The VETcert project developed a certification scheme that has been implemented across Europe. It harmonises skills’ recognition in veteran tree management, increases transparency and, most importantly, raises the standards in veteran tree care. It developed new training resources and a common European minimum level of skills and knowledge for arboriculture, ecology and forestry professionals.
It also established a transparent and objective examination procedure to test knowledge and skills related to veteran tree management. VETcert had 10 partners from seven countries and the VETcert certification process has already certified professionals from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Republic of Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. By promoting better knowledge and providing guidance on the management of our most precious old trees and the species they support, the prospects of these treasures have been significantly improved. Read more...
Erasmus+, Learning opportunities for young people coming from disadvantaged backgrounds award
Project: Working for inclusion and equal opportunities for the most disadvantaged
Organisation: ALMI BILBAO SAL
Country: Spain, with participation of MT, PT
ALMI Bilbao Studies Centre is a vocational training centre that has been providing vocational training since 1939. Today, the centre is made up of around 350 students studying basic, intermediate, and higher-level vocational training and training for employment. Its staff is 100 % dedicated to supporting the centre’s philosophy and values: teamwork, respect and social commitment.
Our Erasmus+ project ‘Working for inclusion and equal opportunities for the most disadvantaged’ arose in the academic year 2019-2020 to address a need that had emerged over the last few years: finding and implementing activities that improve the behaviour of young people who come to the centre, in many cases as the last option they find to achieve personal and professional development. Thanks to Erasmus+, we have seen how internationalisation can become a motivational epicentre that inspires the most disadvantaged students to become enthusiastic about their studies. Read more...
#CedefopPhotoAward “Your green or digital skills story”
Project: Cyclades
Organisation: The 5th Evening Vocational Educational High School of Patras
Country: Greece
The Cyclades were nymphs that Poseidon, God of the Sea, transformed into islands and arranged in a circle. We are students of the Department of Applied Arts and Cyclades is our team’s name. Our 2022 project is inspired by the Aegean’s divine light and motivates us to clean, collect, create and change: ‘4Cs for the sea!’. We remove and reuse marine litter from our region's coastline. Using natural pigments and tools, we not only give our found objects a second chance at life, but also preserve ecological integrity.
We remove and reuse marine litter from our region's coastline. Using natural pigments and tools, we not only give our found objects a second chance at life, but also preserve ecological integrity. Read more...
European Training Foundation (ETF) Green Skills Award
Environmental and Agricultural Education in School
Country: Georgia
The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia introduced the programme ‘Environmental and Agricultural Education in School,' which is being implemented nationwide to enhance environmental and agricultural awareness, green skills and knowledge in schools through the integration of these into subject matter, particularly at the elementary school level. In 2020, a textbook for primary school teachers was developed that presents eight topics that combine theoretical material, activities and complex assignments.
It also summarises the knowledge the students will acquire and what skills will be developed through the activities and assignments presented within the topic. A training process for teachers and curriculum experts is currently being implemented. So far, more than 2 500 teachers have been trained who are now successfully implementing environmental and agricultural activities and spreading the knowledge among their students and colleagues as well. Read more...
Special Mention
Project: GRETA
Country: Eighteen centres of vocational excellence (CoVEs) in eight countries are part of the GRETA initiative: Armenia (1), Georgia (1), Latvia (1), Serbia (1), Slovenia (1), Spain (2), Turkey (3), and Ukraine (8)
In addition to the prizes in the different categories, a special mention went to Ukrainian partners who, along with the European Training Foundation, have been reforming their education and training systems, focusing on qualifications, the future of skills in key economic sectors, and governance arrangements to modernise the system and to bring it closer to the system in the EU.