Training in Spain with sound practical experience
Based on inter-company vocational education and training in Germany
The two-year vocational project “JoinVET”, run in four Spanish cities, has demonstrated that elements of inter-company vocational education and training are able to contribute to increasing the readiness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to provide training.
In Spain, vocational education and training largely takes place in schools and is supplemented in the final months by a practical company-based element. By contrast, dual vocational education and training is less prevalent and generally limited to large Spanish and German companies. With funding from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation and support from the Aachen Chamber of Crafts and Trades, the Chamber of Foreign Trade in Spain together with other Spanish partners is seeking to take steps to counteract this using their “JoinVET” project. BIBB was also involved in an advisory capacity in the project.
The basic idea is to extend the traditional school-based, two-year vocational education and training by a further dual year. In this year, practical blocks in training companies will be linked with theoretical and practical elements in an inter-company training workshop, thus basing the model on the system of inter-company vocational education and training in Germany. This model is intended to generate interest in training from SMEs and to provide trainees with access to sound practical training.
The successful outcomes of the project were presented at the concluding conference on 30 October in Madrid. In total, 87 trainees in 19 training companies completed the project successfully and six SMEs participated which had previously not provided training under the dual system. And training will continue to be provided under this system even after the end of the project.
“The wholesale transfer of the German dual system of vocational education and training to other countries is neither desirable nor possible,” explained Prof. Dr. Michael Heister at the concluding conference. “However, it is possible to transfer individual elements such as the inter-company education and training in a beneficial way. JoinVET is an excellent example of this.”
Information about the project is available at
https://www.ahk.es/dienstleistungen/aus-und-weiterbildung/ (German only)
Contact partner at the Chamber of Foreign Trade in Spain is Tanja Nause, Head of the Vocational Education and Training Department. In the interview she discusses vocational education and training in Spain and the integration of dual elements:
https://downloads.ahk.es/economia/2018-04/31/#zoom=z (German only)