C1 Spain Study visit to Basque Country of Spain

13 Oct C1 Spain Study visit to Basque Country of Spain

A study visit as a part of SMART – COMET Project C1 pillar was held in autonomous Basque Country of Spain between the dates of 9^thand 13^thof October, 2018 including a series of site visits, meetings and discussions.

During the study visit to the Basque Country, professional training of the schools and enterprises in the region and the competency development models of the employees of enterprises were examined.

Participants of the visit are as follows;

The visit was organized by INDEO – Fundación Laboral del Metal (FLM), SMART COMET project partner in Spain and FLM wanted to show the innovative applications on VET in Basque Country to the participants. Representatives of MESS member companies, Ministry of National Education General Directorate of Vocational and Technical Education and managers of vocational and technical Anatolian high schools were present during the visit. Two participants from another partner of the project, Dekra Akademie also joined this study visit and visited schools and companies, and public institutions.

The visit started with getting the expectations of participants and the first visit was to Tknika Research and Innovation Center.

Established under Ministry of Vocational Education, Basque Country offers training programs for teachers and employees both from Spain and around the world. The Center also conducts research projects for small and medium-sized enterprises that do not have R & D centers. The center includes relevant schools to these project teams and provides bridges between schools and enterprises in this way. With this feature, Tknika is a center where new technologies are produced, training methodologies are developed and all of these are promoted by SMEs and schools and all these were shown to visitors through visits to all different workshop areas of the Center.

New technologies and innovations in Turkey and many European Union member states are transferred to schools after being developed in private sector enterprises; however, Tknika, provides specific support to enterprises without R & D units and adds a distinctive and innovative dimension to vocational education and training.

All these developed projects are being disseminated through teacher trainings and employee trainings designed in various sub-headings and durations.

Usurbil GLBHI Vocational Training Center was another institution visited. The school, which has become a reference point for the area of climate change and sustainable energy production, produces projects with companies through Tknika. New training methodology Ethazi applications developed and disseminated by Tknika in the institution were observed and information about the reflections of the applications on students were obtained. With Ethazi learning methodology, students are removed from traditional classroom environment and they are divided into groups by teachers for this challange-based learning method and try to find solutions to the problems they are facing with.

Students need information on many different subjects such as physics, mathematics, languages, while solving these challenges. In this way, they experience and internalize the multidisciplinary working principles of the private sector, meaning that they are trained for the industry.

Another school that was toured within the program was Instituto de Máquina Herramienta-IMH, which specializes in the metal industry and provides vocational training in the field of machine tool from initial level of VET to the master education level including a specialization program.

The Ethazi method was also observed in this school and Elgoibar, a medium-sized company in which this school is in cooperation was another stop visited right after. Company’s cooperation with school and its production areas were introduced to participants, and information was also provided on models that employees and students applied on competence management.

A wrap up meeting was held as a focus group at the end of study visit.

The outstanding points of this meeting were as follows;

• A Ministry of Vocational Education was established in Basque Country showing the importance they are giving to VET and the perspective of the regional government.
• Seeing that a public institution, Tknika, is providing innovation for the enterprises, although these enterprises are SMEs, is said to be quite visionary for the schools and Ministry representatives.
• The Center is providing teacher’s training in a way that they are disseminating the information to the students.
• Having close relations and engaging in projects with the private sector, workshop standards of the schools were also high meaning that students get the chance to keep up with the latest technology.
• There is a performance system in schools for the teachers. This was also impressing for participants since this supports the creativity and motivation of teachers to apply innovative learning and teaching methods.