The “CIRCULAR VET” project has officially begun with a kick-off meeting held on February 7th and 8th, 2024, at the Somorrostro Training Center in Muskiz, Basque Country. This event marked the beginning of collaborative work among the project partners to promote vocational training in the circular economy and prepare students for the demands of a sector increasingly focused on sustainability and circularity. The “CIRCULAR VET” project focuses on updating vocational training (VET) curricula with competencies linked to the transition from a linear to a circular business model in the metalworking sector. The project partners include, in addition to HETEL, the Somorrostro Training Center (Basque Country), ECOLE (Italy), Prios Kompetanse AS (Norway), the Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (iED) (Greece), and EVBB (Germany). The project will last 24 months, from December 2023 to November 2025, with a total budget of 250,000 euros. During the two-day kick-off meeting, the main objectives of the project were presented, including filling the gap in green skills in vocational training, updating VET curricula with a focus on the circular economy, and preparing the future workforce to work on reducing the carbon footprint. The activities to be developed in each work package, as well as the project schedule and the responsibilities of each partner, were discussed. A key aspect of the meeting was the collaboration of educational institutions to identify the needs of the industrial sector and adapt the training content accordingly. Interviews will be conducted with companies in the metalworking sector and surveys will be carried out with vocational training teachers, with the aim of identifying the skills needed to promote the circular economy in this field. The results of these investigations will serve as the basis for the creation of new training content and teaching materials, including MOOCs that will be available to all centers in the network. The meeting concluded with a general discussion session and the planning of the next steps, including the preparation of initial materials and the launch of the first research and training activities. The next in-person project meeting is scheduled for October in Milan, where the progress achieved will be reviewed.
HETEL drives the GeTinVET project to improve skills in the construction sector
HETEL has taken an important step forward in the GeTinVET project with the kick-off meeting held in Cologne, Germany. This project aims to define the transversal skills needed by workers in the construction and building maintenance sector, with the goal of fostering collaboration and improving sustainability in the field. The technical complexity of modern buildings requires specific skills that enable different trades to work more efficiently and in a more coordinated manner. GeTinVET involves the participation of several international partners, including: In addition, alongside HETEL, the Otxarkoaga Vocational Training Center also plays a key role. The initiative will conclude in June 2025 with a course at the Arnhem Summer School in the Netherlands, where the project results will be presented and the best practices developed will be shared.
MENESIANOS NANCLARES
Avenida Langraiz 201230 Nanclares de la OcaTfno: 945 371 007www.menesianosnanclares.cominfo@menesianosnanclares.com Basic Vocational TrainingWelding Intermediate Vocational TrainingOutdoor Activities and Leisure Guide Higher Vocational TrainingPhysical Conditioning
Growing Green: Innovation and Sustainability in Vocational Training
From September 25th to 28th, Ljubljana was the backdrop for a specialized educational event under the Erasmus+ Growing Green project. HETEL, along with other international partners, showcased groundbreaking tools such as a game based on Lego Serious Play, tailored to instill the principles of green entrepreneurship in VT students. Our representatives, teachers from Jesuitak Indautxu, together with our partners in the project Salesianos Urnieta and organizations from Slovenia, Italy, and Denmark, delving into materials such as manuals and the “Growing Green” game. Interaction and networking enriched the event, facilitating the sharing of ideas and methodologies. We are proud to be part of this initiative that seeks not only to educate in sustainability but also highlight the importance and profitability of green entrepreneurship in today’s Europe. Discover more about this project and its tools at www.growing-green.eu.
First version of the VR environment to train customer care skills
The Erasmus+ Project “Virtual Reality for Vocational Education” (VR4VET) is having this week a meeting hosted by ROC van Amsterdam (Nethelands), partner in the Project, to finetune the VR environment and the 4 domains created to develop customer care related skills for students in different VET sectors: retail, hospitality, consultancy and hair and beauty. The objective of the project, coordinated by Gradia College (Finland), is to provide VET teachers and students with an engaging and motivating way of learning, based on inmersive technologies, to develop and refine student´s ability to deal with customers, while increasing capacity of using new technologies for teaching and learning in vocational schools. The beta versión of the VR environment including the 4 domains and different scenarios defined will be available at the beginning of 2024, before a training evento to be hosted by Aarhus Technik (Denmark). HETEL is a partner in this project and has involved teachers from Egibide (Vitoria) and Sopeña Bilbao as part of the development team.
Training teachers in digital skills in Prague
The DigiSchool Erasmus+ project, a European initiative aimed at enhancing the digital skills of vocational education and training teachers, in which HETEL is involved as a partner, recently held its third Learning, Training and Teaching Activity (LTTA) in Prague. From June 20 to 22, 22 participants from Italy, Germany, Czech Republic and Euskadi gathered at the Institut Impro facilities to participate in this formative activity. The event also included the participation of attendees in the DisCo Microsoft conference, where the impact of artificial intelligence on education was discussed. This meeting offered teachers the opportunity to improve their knowledge of digital tools and share experiences with colleagues from all over Europe. Attendees were able to learn how to use various digital tools, creating specific content for their students. They were also presented with the documents generated within the DigiSchool project, which they could download and start using. Reactions to the LTTA in Prague have been very positive. Participants highlighted the value of the conferences and the opportunity to exchange experiences with colleagues from other countries as the most interesting aspects of the event. Looking ahead, the DigiSchool project is focused on finalizing the following outcomes: DigiTube and DigiHub. DigiTube will consist of micro-learning units in the form of short and attractive videos that offer step-by-step instructions on how to incorporate and use innovative digital tools to solve specific problems. DigiHub, for its part, will be a centralized online learning platform that will allow teachers to self-assess their knowledge of digital tools and access all the didactic material of the project. Once these outcomes are completed, a pilot will be carried out with 130 teachers from all over Europe before opening the results to the general public. This represents an exciting step towards achieving DigiSchool’s objectives: to equip educators with the necessary skills and knowledge to navigate the digital world and effectively impart this knowledge to their students.
Learning to embed international competences in VET curricula
This week in Helsinki we have had the opportunity to learn about the resources created by the Erasmus+ KA2 funded project, Build@Home, to embed internationalisation in training provision of vocational schools. Through the site www.buildathome.online, we have discovered different tools to foster the strategic thinking about why to care about internationalisation in vocational education, tools to create our own plan of approach to involve all staff (and students) in our schools and tools to implement our own internationalisation at home activities. Thanks to the exchange among participants from Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Italy and the Basque Country, HETEL´s team has come back inspired and greatly motivated to make internationalisation a reality for all of our students!
DUALEcosystem project meeting in Belfast
Aitor Ruiz from HETEL and Iratxe Lejarreta from Maristak Durango participated in the Erasmus plus Dual Ecosystem project meeting in Belfast. During the meeting, the partners from the Basque Country, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom shared the outcomes of the focus groups conducted with companies in the ICT sector, aiming to determine the qualification needs. The objective of this project is to exchange best practices in Dual training programs within the ICT sector among schools of different countries, with the aim of analysing the transferability of these examples.
Exchanging good practices on inclusion activities in Riga
In-Di is an Eramus+ KA2 project aimed to work, from different perspectives, on how to support students´ wellbeing in vocational schools in order to keep them engaged and motivated with learning. This week, the project partners led by Vysocina Education (Czech Republic), have met in Riga to exchange good practices in activities implemented with secondary and vocational education students in order to improve well-being in schools, following the results of a previous survey carried out with almost 1000 students from France, Czech Republic, Italy, Germany, Latvia and Basque Country. In the case of HETEL, the school involved in the project is Colegio Ángeles Custodios, in Bilbao, which shared an activity part of their 3 hours self-esteem workshop. The rest of the partners presented also their good practices on topics such as creative problem solving and trust building. In September we will meet in Germany for a study visit in 2 schools belonging to the network EUGES-Köln.
HETEL reinforces its commitment to collaboration between European networks
These days we´ve met in Glasgow (Scotland) to celebrate our 8th Network of Networks (NoN) annual meeting, the first in person after the pandemic and the end of our KA3 project (www.partnersin.vet). Despite the “B word” and the challenge that it represents to keep our strategic plan in place without external funding, the great amount of international coordinators, teachers and other staff from VET colleges in our 5 networks present in Glasgow, the fact that our Scottish partners, City of Glasgow College and New College Lanarkshire, are this year hosts and the results presented by the different thematic working groups about their work until now and their future plans, are the definite proof that our willingness for cooperation in greater than some adverse external circumstances and the commitment and engagement of the colleges towards NoN is strong enough to keep and deepen our work together. Each of the working groups (innovation, internationalisation, sustainability, entrepreneurship and work based learning) had the opportunity to work together during the event and share their results with the Steering Committee and the other working groups. In the next months, they will keep going and the SC will monitor the results regularly. Next chance to meet in person again in the framework of NoN will be during the next annual meeting, to be hosted this time in The Netherlands from the 6th to the 8th of November, counting this time also with the presence of our VET leaders.