Progress through collaboration – Advancing education and training in timber construction Erasmus Project

Project Title

Progress through collaboration – Advancing education and training in timber construction

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development)

Project Summary

The use of wood in the construction industry has continued to gain momentum in Europe in recent years. The prospects and development opportunities are promising and far from at their peak. At the same time, the associated challenges for companies and enterprises in the construction sector have risen sharply. This has reinforced the realisation that the future development of timber construction can only be mastered with a sufficient number of well-trained employees. Raising the level of training creates positive prospects in two ways: countries with high unemployment increase the proportion of highly qualified employees who make a valuable contribution to the national economy. At the same time, countries with high economic power and a shortage of skilled labour can offer promising employment opportunities to sufficiently trained workers from countries with weaker economic power and high unemployment.

In order to offer companies, workers, educational institutions and associations in the timber construction sector better starting conditions for improving the opportunities for action and exploiting the opportunities for cooperation, it was necessary to carry out a comprehensive and transparent stocktaking of the background information on vocational education and training in timber construction, which had so far been insufficient, and to significantly expand the existing individual contacts with players in vocational education and training. This would create the necessary prerequisites for an expanded cooperation in the future on the basis of a European vocational training network in timber construction.

The following project partners were involved in the implementation of the project:
Timber Construction Europe, Luxembourg – Coordinator
Berufsförderungswerk des Baden-Württembergischen Zimmererhandwerks, Germany
Alppisalvos Oy, Finland
Tyrolean vocational school for wood technology, Austria
Épitési Vállakozók Országos Szakszövetsége (ÉVOSZ), Hungary
Holzbau Letzebuerg Asbl, Luxembourg
Associated Partner: Holzbau Switzerland

The following main activities were carried out as part of the project:
• Survey of the framework conditions for initial and continuing training in the carpentry trade
• Comparison of educational systems and qualifications in European timber construction
• Creation of structures for further education, promotion qualification and further education
• Determination of the development of job descriptions and job profiles in the course of upgrading qualifications
• Permeability of training systems
• Competence fields and functions in timber construction companies in accordance with the entrepreneurial and economic
requirements framework conditions
• Inter-company training centres, training offers, training methods,
• Lighting of exchange activities, international networks and partnerships
• Future cooperation in a European vocational training Network
• Follow-up project

Achieved results and effect
Based on a high degree of basic transparency of education systems in the countries of the European Union and individual associated countries, typologies and education clusters could be developed that provided initial information on general system differences as well as on the type and extent of knowledge, skills and competences imparted. For the first time it was possible to make a more precise inventory of timber construction in which countries vocational training in timber construction/carpentry takes place and which knowledge, skills and qualifications are imparted in the course of further and advanced training and which are available in the curricula and course offerings of vocational training centres. The determination of the permeability of the education system could be described in individual best-practice cases. The project also provided initial insights into the dynamics of the development of vocational education and training in countries that have not yet had regulated vocational education and training.

The long-term benefit of the project is that it can be expected that cooperation for the further development of VET in European timber construction, projects for the systematic acquisition of skills and competences and educational cooperation will be strengthened through the exchange of teaching and training methods and measures for the horizontal mobility of trainees, long-term employees and teachers and trainers. The partner network of European vocational education and training in timber construction established in the course of the project work could make a lasting contribution to this.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 46025 Eur

Project Coordinator

Timber Construction Europe & Country: LU

Project Partners

• EPITESI VALLALKOZOK ORSZAGOS SZAKSZOVETSEGE
• Holzbau Lëtzebuerg Asbl
• Alppisalvos Oy
• Tiroler Fachberufsschule für Holztechnik
• Gemeinnuetziges Berufsfoerderungswerk GmbH