Green Skills 4 VET project will focus on three main topic areas, chosen among the European Commission’s priorities of the Erasmus+ programme for the VET (Vocational Education & Training) sector.

Environment and Fighting Climate Change

With the aim of introducing environmental sustainability into the VET curriculum, the project proposes the design and testing of learning programmes on sustainable development constructed from real business scenarios, with the active involvement of companies belonging to economic sectors with a particular impact on environmental balance. In order to involve more European areas and more productive sectors, the following have been chosen: the agricultural production sector, represented by Portugal; the food engineering and plant engineering sector, represented by Italy (Parma area); the fashion and textile-mechanics industry sector, represented by Slovenia; the logistics, transport and forwarding sector, represented by Croatia. The project focuses on the theme of environmental sustainability, proposing experimentation aimed at innovating VET curricula starting from real environmental problems that the economic-productive system is currently called upon to face and solve. Environmental education assumes a key role within VET systems, whose most immediate professional outlet is the labour market and, primarily, the manufacturing industry.

Inclusion and Diversity

The growing population of VET learners includes migrant learners with language or cultural barriers, learners with special educational needs and learners who need teaching methods based on experiential practice and/or involvement in groups/collective situations. If the VET system lacks inclusive teaching methodologies, a part of these learners is at risk of dropping out of education.  The project promotes the experimentation of learning programmes on environmental sustainability with the use of work-based and problem-based activities delivered according to the Flipped Classroom training methodological approach, with active involvement of learners in the collective resolution of real cases.

Adapting the VET system to the labour market

The project promotes the updating of VET qualifications and programmes by encouraging their adaptation to the current labour market needs, and in particular to the demands for Green Skills expressed by the manufacturing system, which is called upon to manage the green transition. Industry, which is involved in the project partnership, is a place where structured teams of professionals already work to tackle sustainability problems, design and test solutions and validate the results. The manufacturing system expects to recruit new VET graduates who are increasingly environmentally aware and able to make a concrete and qualified contribution.

The partnership, led by Cisita Parma, represents an experimental collaboration between VET institutes at secondary level, companies in the production and manufacturing sector as well as strategic consultancy and training companies.

Cisita Parma, coordinator of the project, will take care of the training design of the project activities and the evaluation of the learning outcomes for the VET system, having under control the monitoring and quality control plan.

The mechano-food sector will be represented by Italy with the participation of the ‘C.E. Gadda‘ technical-professional institute in Fornovo-Langhirano (PR), which offers the ‘Maintenance and Technical Assistance’ vocational course with specialization towards the mechanical and mechatronic maintenance of industrial plants. The school will be supported by the Parma-based company Frigomeccanica SpA, a manufacturer of refrigeration systems for food preservation, especially meat and sausages. 

The primary food production sector will be represented by Portugal with the participation of the EPAQL Institute – Escola Profissional Agricola Quinta da Lageosa in Covilhâ, a school dedicated to agricultural production with a focus on mechanisation, horticulture and maintenance of green spaces, and animal breeding, particularly equine. The institute will be supported by AAPIM of Guarda, Association of Farmers for the Integrated Production of Mountain Fruits.

Slovenia, on the other hand, will represent the textile-mechanical sector, with the participation of the professional institute SICLJ – Centre for Technical Education in Ljubljana, which offers, among others, technical courses in ‘fashion design’ and professional technicians in ‘textile repair/rework’. The school will be joined by the company Dolejši Modni Gumbi from Ljubljana, a manufacturer of plastic buttons, new organic materials and eco-friendly synthetic materials for fashion and accessories.

The cross-sector of Logistics will be represented by Croatia, with the participation of the SCP Škola na Cestovni Promet Institute in Zagreb – Higher School for Road Traffic, which offers qualifications in ‘Logistics and Shipping Technician’ and ‘Road Traffic Technician’. The Institute will be supported by the company TOKIC from Zagreb, an automotive distributor which deals with storage, transport, and express delivery of spare components for any kind of vehicle.

The dissemination and evaluation of the potential impact of the solutions to reduce the environmental impact of the productions tested during the project will be entrusted to Prospektiker, an independent company from the Basque Country specialised in prospective studies, strategic consultancy and forecasting of the mega-trends impacting the productive and economic realities of the territories, with particular reference to the digital transition.

The project activities will last two years, from November 2023 to October 2023, and will be divided into five Work Packages:

WP 1: Project management. Management and co-ordination of activities, quality control plan and promo-communication strategy

WP 2: Sector studies on environmental sustainability in production and manufacturing activities.

Business partners from each country/production sector will provide schools with articles, studies, position papers and other suitable documentation to illustrate the environmental sustainability challenges currently affecting manufacturing activities.

Each experimenting team/country will organise a company testimonial tour for the benefit of their local partner schools, to familiarise students with the real sustainability issues impacting on industrial, manufacturing and production processes and products.

The students will receive from the company in their respective sector a “sustainability challenge” to work on at school and find a possible solution proposal. On the basis of the company testimonial, the teachers will design a teaching case based on the work and solving of concrete problems.

WP 3: Education programme and work-based testing on sustainability at single-sector level

The VET provider project partners will try out laboratory, experiential, work-based programmes in a school or company environment. In this first phase, the students will work on the sustainability problem they received as a “challenge” during the previous WP2 on a mono-sectoral level, i.e. on a topic related to their field of study. Through scientific experiments in the laboratory, individual research and team work, each school will attempt to find a solution hypothesis or an improved proposal to the industrial problem studied.

The training methodology chosen is that of the flipped classroom, whereby the students are first confronted with a delivery received as a ‘task to be solved’, i.e. the ‘sustainability challenge’ thrown at them by the company. This is followed by a phase of laboratory experimentation in teams and individual research, monitored and supervised by the teachers, but without guiding or resolving interventions in terms of approach or content. At the end of the experimentation, there will follow a phase of presentation and return of the work carried out by the students, with discussion, comment, correction and evaluation by the teachers.

WP 4: Education programme and work-based testing on sustainability at inter- and cross-sectoral level

To prepare for the second test, business partners and VET providers will jointly design one or more environmental sustainability problems from at least two distinct fields of production or fields of study, from among those in the partnership, to be tackled inter- and cross-sectorally.

New school-company pairs could be identified, so that the Italian mechanical school would work with the Croatian logistics company for example, or the Croatian logistics school would work with the Portuguese agricultural association.  Alternatively, an articulated sustainability challenge touching all the sectors represented could be agreed upon, and each would be addressed through separate workshop tests at each partner VET institution. Peer-to-peer cooperation and company/student supervision will thus take place remotely, through scheduled virtual meetings between students from different schools and between managers and teachers/students from different countries/sectors to seek assistance, guidance, validation of programmes and tested solutions.

WP 5: Multiplier events.

Public events will be organised in each project partner country (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia and Croatia) to present the project activities and results.