UNDER CONSTRUCTION – KEY SKILLS MAKING TOP PROFESSIONALS IN CONSTRUCTION AND HABITAT 4.0 Erasmus Project

Project Title

UNDER CONSTRUCTION – KEY SKILLS MAKING TOP PROFESSIONALS IN CONSTRUCTION AND HABITAT 4.0

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal)

Project Summary

The project started from the idea that VET is currently expanding and diversifying, according to CEDEFOP, and it is increasing the number of students, according to Eurostat. In addition, there is a globalization of the economy, and that means that European market has to be extremely competitive against other markets (Asian or North American market); that can´t be done, or at least not only, with the improvement of raw materials or increasing the labor force, it needs that the professionals collect the top skills required in each job position to achieve the best possible performance. Those skills should be acquired during the training professional phase, and that means that the VET in Europe should try to improve their standards and make efforts to train top world professionals, but also, there are the possibility to learn those skills afterwards while they are working.

There are job positions which need that the new professionals achieve to acquire high-level skills on it in order that Europe could compete with other markets. For that this project is focused in some traditional and emergent related job positions about Construction, Habitat and Industry 4.0.

Having this in mind, the partnership elaborated a plan to build up on top performers main skills of Carpentry, Bricklaying, Wall and floor tilling, Cabinetmaking, Domotics, Design technologies and 3D-Printing in order to ensure: the most applicable skills would be identified by the most adequate stakeholders; a coherent training programme would be developed following such needs’ assessment; the training programme would be fed by the applicable contents and materials in due respect for their quantity (good enough to supply for the needs) and quality (good enough to achieve the desired skills’ upgrade on users); the training programme would be available online in order to target as much users as possible; the training programme would be understood, validated and able for further use by the applicable stakeholders. This chain of intentions was achieved by setting-up the project according to the initially estimated activities which led to a very significant amount of training products (including the pedagogical contents for the seven construction and industry domains and an open-access e-learning platform offering the courses). The involvement of stakeholders and of target-groups (in a larger amount than the initial estimations) finally granted the results the confirmation about their relevance and applicability within their applied contexts (of each participating country).

The available outputs are able to be used by potential learners (VET students and professionals), Teachers and trainers, Educational administration representatives, Stakeholders and decision makers and Experts in human resources, but they are also available for general public.

The ‘Under Construction’ project brought together 6 partners from 5 countries: Portugal, Spain, The Netherlands, Italy and Germany with complementary skills and with necessary background to achieve the goals of the project, which were fully achieved against the constraints of the pandemic crisis emerged during the project’s mid-term, and representing a huge challenge for the partners, who were forced to find new and unexpected continha plans and measures in order to ensure the project’s feasibility and compromise with the initially foreseen results.

The project set up a website as a hub to liaise users and interested parties to the entire range of results: https://www.underconstructionkeyskills.eu/

Project Website

https://www.underconstructionkeyskills.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 302573 Eur

Project Coordinator

APLOAD Lda & Country: PT

Project Partners

• Fundación WorldSkills
• Merk
• ASOCIACION EMPRESARIAL DE INVESTIGACION CENTRO TECNOLOGICO DEL MUEBLE Y LA MADERA DE LA REGION DE MURCIA
• CONSORZIO MATERAHUB INDUSTRIE CULTURALI E CREATIVE SCARL
• FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITÄT ERLANGEN-NÜRNBERG
• Centro de Formação Profissional da Indústria da Construção Civil e Obras Públicas do Norte