These days HETEL International is attending the 5th transnational meeting of the EURspace project celebrated in Italy. During the meeting, the project partners have discussed about the last steps to launch a digital platform with a methodology which will help to identify common learning outcomes within a mobility project and will make easier finding commonalities among VET curricula in Europe. A training kit addressed to VET teachers and students about the use of ECVET as a quality assurance process to be used in a mobility project, will also be available. Next April 2018 a training action on these topics will take place in Portugal with the attendance of 2 HETEL´s teachers. .

Today has taken place, in the facilities of AIC-Automotive Intelligence Center, in Boroa, the kick-off of the specialization programs in Dual VET in the fields of die-making and robotics for the automotive sector in the Basque Country, organized by HETEL and AIC. This courses are funded by Basque employment service – Lanbide and by the Vocational Department of the Basque Government. The beginning of this course, has counted with the presence of the director of Technology and Advanced Learning of VET of the Basque Government, Rikar Lamadrid; of Julen Elgeta, president of HETEL and of Aitor Ruiz, Director of Knowledge Management of AIC / ACICAE, and also, with the participating companies and VET teachers and students. The acts concluded with a visit to AIC´s facilities, where the in lightening, advanced manufacturing and virtual vehicle development centres or the GTI-Gestamp Technology Institute itself, are located. These facilities suppose an unbeatable setting for this initiative, since the students will have the opportunity to work in a real world environment, adapted in a didactical way to benefit their learning process. Specifically, on the one hand, the course “Design and Manufacture of dies for the production of a metal piece” (die-making) has been started, where the students will alternate their apprenticeship in companies with their learning in AIC and GTI. 18 students start this course, in which companies such as Matrici, Garita, Batz, Cie Automotive, Irudi or Gestamp participate. On the other hand, it has also been the opening of the course of “Management of means of production in highly automated industry” (robotics), where students will combine their training in companies with training in AIC. 12 students participate in this program, along with companies such as Robot Inser, Irudi, Ingemat, Dibal, RPK, Pierburg, Inauxa, Cikautxo, PMG and Nemak.

Mobility programmes like Erasmus+ or Global Training offer the possibility to some VET students and graduates to have a working experience in a different country. This not only increases their opportunities to find a job (and a better one) but it also builds in them the concept of global citizenship and provides them with useful skills to manage their personal and professional lives. In order to prepare these VET students and graduates to take the best out of these experiences, VET teachers need to have the skills to: –         –  Integrate intercultural skills and internacionalization directly in the VET curriculum, so all students develop these skills on a certain level. –          – Be aware of mobility possibilities, programmes existing, process management and transversal aspects of the mobility for learning. –          – Explore different ways of work based learning abroad and how competences can be recognised. To upscale the teachers skills to improve the impact of mobility and to integrate internationalization as a fundamental aspect in VET curriculum, HETEL international is attending these days to the kick-off meeting in Cologne of the WBL Summer School, a project coordinated by UNISER (Italy) with German, French, Portuguese and Slovenian partners. During these 2 days meeting, we have been working in the design of the structure and learning objectives of this summer school, which will be held in Italy the last week of June 2018.  

This year, thanks to the support of BBK and Caja Vital, two financial entities from the Basque Country, a group of students and teachers from HETEL schools will participate in the international version of the Diseinua project, following the e-motive methodology. This week our colleague Martin Borsje, from the Dutch ROC Da Vinci school, visited the participating HETEL schools and met with all the teachers involved. The purpose of this visit was to design and plan both the challenge to be solved with cooperative methodologies, by the teams of students from Euskadi and the Netherlands, as well as the moments in which the student´s mobilities will be carried out. The idea is to hold a first meeting in Euskadi, where students from both countries meet each other. During the stay, the teams will be selected and the challenge to be solved will be presented. Throughout 2 months they will work together in teams using different technological means (Skype, e-mail, etc). Participants in this project, in addition to learning collaboratively through a project, acquire other key skills and competences, such as English proficiency, work in multicultural teams, independence or self-management. Abantean!  

Throughout this week, more than 300 people will debate in HETEL schools about the necessary skills to face the technological advances in the 4.0 Industry era. This action is part of the European Vocational Skills Week, which this year has as claim “Discover your talent”. In each of the 21 participating HETEL Schools, a group of three agents (students, teachers and employers) will debate, and then, they will connect by videoconference to share their reflections with two other schools, which have already performed the analysis. All these conclusions, will be collected by HETEL. In these debates, the participants will try to answer questions such as what are the key competences people should have in a changing environment?, Can these competences be acquired in a VET School? What values ​​should be taken into account when making a new contract?. The current speed of change, specially the technological one, entails that much of the knowledge learned in the school is soon obsolete, which makes more than ever necessary a lifelong learning process, and accentuates the importance of certain transversal competences. These debates involve companies such as Euskaltel, Ikusi, RPK, Goimek-Danobat, CIE Egaña, Jema Energy S.A (Irizar Group), Elimotor Workshops, Prasa, Noraybio, Wolco, Batz Araluce, Ekin, …  

This week HETEL international is in Alba (Italy) with our colleagues from LAIT 4.0, an Erasmus+ KA2 project coordinated by HETEL and with D&A (UK), ROC Da Vinci College (NL), KTPMC (LT), APRO Formazione (IT) and IK4 Tekniker as partners. After a 5 days training in industry 4.0, provided in Spain by IK4 Tekniker, and a short course to transfer this knowledge to other teachers from partner organizations, the next step is to carry out technological check-ups in companies. The methodology and template to be used will be the discussion topics in this meeting to start with the technological check ups in 2018. Afterwards, we will créate a guide for VET colleges with the steps we followed so other colleges can replicate our work. Resources and more information can be found in the project Website: www.lait40.eu

HETEL coordinates LAIT 4.0, an Erasmus+ KA2 project aimed to transfer VET teachers knowledge, skills and competences related to industry 4.0. After attending a course provided by IK4 TEKNIKER, the VET teachers involved in the project organised yesterday a short training event in the Goierri VET college to transfer what they leart to other VET teachers. During this event, they went through the different technologies related to industry 4.0 and how they are changing and creating new business models. The attendants also had the opportunity to see different demos about the use of collaborative robotics, virtual reality, added manufacturing and virtual welding through augmented reality. In the afternoon they also paid a visit to IK4 TEKNIKER´s headquarters, also a partner in the LAIT 4.0 project. In the project Website www.lait40.eu you can access all the materials related to the project and keep updated about our progress.

HETELinternational is this week in Lanciano (Italy) with the partners of the “Understanding and achieving Automotive Training Outcomes 4.0.- AUTO 4.0.” Erasmus+ project of Strategic Partnership in VET. The main objective of this project is to anticipate the future key skills needed by the qualified workers of the automotive sector, and provide digital training materials to facilitate the online continuous training of the employees, in order to adapt to the implementation of the industry 4.0.  In this project, HETEL and AIC- Automotive intelligence centre will cooperate to improve the qualification of the employees in their associated companies. This project has also partners from Italy, United Kingdom and Germany. Abantean! 

DELTA is an Erasmus+ KA2 project which aims to enhance and improve the quality of Work Based Learning. Along the 2 years of the project, the partners will produce several results to: –          Improve the information companies have about VET centres, shifting from a focus based on “what the compan needs” to “what a VET learner can do for the company”, facilitating transparency about methodologies used in VET centres, projects they are involved in, international activity and any other aspect which can lead to a better use of the VET learner skills within the company. –          Enhance the role of the tutor/trainer in company, establishing ways to improve his/her skills, the relation with the VET centre and to recognise the important part they play in WBL. –          Define a structured process to host students in companies, offering also alternatives for shared apprenticeships schemes, combined with mobility opportunities abroad whenever possible. We are happy to work again with Dundee & Angus College in this project, already a good friend of HETEL, and to meet new interesting partners from Sweden, Germany, Italy and Romania. Let´s go ABANTEAN with DELTA!

HETEL International is these days visiting the school EPRALIMA (Portugal) in the framework of the ERASMUS+ Project PBP in VET. As in previous ocassions, the partners of the project has assessed the module produced this time by the Portuguese partner about different kind of PICs for motors connection. Next meeting will take place in Bilbao in Salesianos Deusto, the HETEL Abantean school participating in the project.