Spain – Vocational Training Seminar for SDB and FMA Schools

28 April 2023

(ANS - Madrid) - On April 20 and 21, about thirty people from the two Salesian Provinces of Spain and the Spanish Province of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians deepened their knowledge of the new law on Professional Formation and the challenges and possibilities it offers.

Aware that since its charismatic origins, Vocational Training has been present as a preferential option of Salesian schools, the continuous adaptation to social and legislative reality has led Salesians to be ever-attentive to social, cultural, political, and labor changes to provide adequate responses to young people.

Now, in light of Organic Law 3/2022, dated March 31, on the Organization and Integration of Vocational Training - which, among its regulations, provides for an extension of dual training and internalization of education - the Salesian National School Team has proposed to hold a seminar during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Specifically, the meeting had five objectives: to study Organic Law 3/2022, dated March 31; to consider the possibilities offered by the regulatory development of this law; to find out what evaluation is made of this law in the business world; to reflect on the possibilities that internationalization offers to vocational training centers; and to offer some specific suggestions for Salesian Vocational Training schools to adapt to the new legislation.

The participants were divided into three working groups, each enriched by individuals of high level, of expertise and knowledge of the realities related to Vocational Training.

On the morning of April 20, the Director General of Vocational Training of Castilla y León, Agustín Sigüenza, helped the group reflect on the law and its regulatory development, while also offering interesting insights into its interpretation. In the afternoon, meanwhile, José Miguel Guerrero Sedano, President of the Education and Training Commission of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE in Spanish); and Juan Carlos Tejeda, Director of the Education and Training Department of CEOE, spoke. Both offered their views on the new law, looking at it from the perspective of the business world.

The dual nature of Vocational Training will clearly have a strong impact on the business world, and although the approach is interesting and is already being implemented in some EU countries, there are many challenges that this law poses for both companies and schools. "In some cases, more than challenges, there are doubts about how to do the mentoring and accompaniment of all the Vocational Training students in our country by companies," explained Fr. Óscar Bartolomé, responsible for Salesian schools. "In fact, we have been advised to start generating dialogue and communication meetings with companies, to see how the training in companies will develop and what the mentoring will look like."

On Friday, April 21, the work opened with the intervention of María Gómez Ortueta, Director of the "Erasmus+" and "Europass VET" unit of the Spanish Service for the Internationalization of Education (SEPIE). With her experience in this task, she presented all the possibilities offered by internationalization through Erasmus programs for Vocational Training centers.

The day ended with the drafting of a sort of decalogue, which includes some ideas to be taken into consideration in Salesian centers to better prepare to comply with this law.

The last moment was the preparation of a simple evaluation of the meeting, which was judged very positively. Suggestions were also made to repeat a similar meeting next year, to resume technical conferences at the national level, and to share what is being done at the national and regional levels.

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