Greening Technical VET (GT-VET)

Sustainable Training Module for the European Steel Industry

This project has been funded with support from the European Commissions’ Education and Training programme Leonardo da Vinci.
The information contained in this publication does not necessarily reflect the position or opinion of the European Commission.

Summary

Critical to the global competitiveness of European industries is a timely response to demands for new mandatory skills. The European Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP) has focused its agenda around education and training to ensure skills needs are met and the long term competitiveness of the EU steel industry is secured. In parallel, since 2006, special attention has been given to the anticipation of skills needs in the steel industry in the framework of the Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee on steel by both European social partners (EMF and EUROFER).

The Greening Technical Vocational Education and Training (GT VET) project aims to explore how vocational education and training (VET) pathways meet environment and health and safety skill needs, which are key for the global competitiveness and sustainability of all European industries. As a model, the project will develop an industry driven European sustainable training module in correspondence with national VET systems. A partnership of steel companies and research institutes, from each participating member state, aims to identify and anticipate the impacts of environmental legislation on the everyday work of mechanical/industrial technicians and electrical technicians (for today and the future). Independent of the different VET systems of the member states, VET practices and learning outcomes need to be evaluated with respect to environmental skills, expertise and awareness. Based on these insights a European training module will be developed to obtain identical European learning outcomes in the field of green skills and sustainable awareness (for example, focusing on preventing pollution and securing occupational health and safety) that will complement current technical VET programmes in this area. The module will be tested within four steel companies and member states (United Kingdom, Poland, Italy and Germany). Adjustments for each national system of VET will be made and learning outcomes will be evaluated with transferable credit points (ECVET).

Using the example of the steel industry and the VET of industrial, mechanical, electrical and electronic technicians, the module and process of implementation might possibly be developed for adaptation and transfer to other technical VET professions and production industries. The aim is for the module and the tested implementation processes to become a blueprint for the updating and implementation of training for new skills into the VET system, which are focused on meeting industry driven requirements for environmental sustainability in an immediate and responsive way.