About 200 students, male and female, from 60 Salesian Vocational Training Centres were selected for their expertise and creativity to take part in specific competitions for each professional sector. At stake, in addition to success in the competition, there is above all a chance to do well in front of the numerous employees of the business world who attend the tests.
Among the main aims of the competition is the deepening and consolidation of the relationship between students, the Vocational Training Centres and the world of work. The competition can also stimulate students to compete in a test developed in consultation with employers in the sector, which reflects the skills that the student must reach by the end of the course. This serves to promote continuous technological improvement and the business culture of the Vocational Training Centres and the industry.
The tests are subdivided according to skills in 7 occupational sectors and 3 cross areas. The competition was open 19-22 April in Mestre Venice and Verona, and in the professional centre in Turin during the first week of May. The last of the tests are now underway in Rome and Genoa.
This initiative goes under various names - exercise, test or masterpiece. It is part of a good Salesian tradition. In the 1850s and 1860s Don Bosco, with clear foresight and with very practical purposes, opened six workshops: shoemaking (1853); tailoring (1853); bookbinding (1854); carpentry (1856); printing (1861); and metal work (1862).
