It has been a long time coming, but the study on professional prospecting that the Government presented yesterday means an important “leap” in the professional training system (FP) because it puts black on white the map of the needs of companies and that of the ‘training offer in such a way that it serves as information to plan the training offer and guide young people towards training cycles with high insertion.
According to the president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, who yesterday presented the General Prospective Report 2023-2026, accompanied by his councilors and the president of the Public Agency for Professional Training and Qualification of Catalonia, Fabián Mohedano, it is a “change of paradigm” that will allow young people to be guided towards training with a job exit and close to their place of residence (the productive needs for counties and provinces are now being prepared). It will be more difficult to open disc jockey clubs just because it’s a youth demand if there aren’t enough entertainment companies asking for it. Those same young people can be directed towards other well-paid trades that companies are desperately looking for, even by hiring labor abroad, in areas such as digitization, people care, transport and maintenance. Or chemistry, especially in the Tarragona area.
At the same time, the planning of the offer of cycles will be done on the basis of this radiography. Is it worth opening more fashion or hair salon places? The study says no, that it is enough and that no more will be created unless there is a reason to justify it. Should we consider offering more laboratory assistant positions? The answer is that they are urgently needed. Existing places are filled and many students are left out.
And what happens to those cycles with enough offer but which the students do not choose? More information and guidance needed. In this sense, the Government is waiting to approve the guidance decree, a key piece in a modern FP system, which promotes the development of the student’s knowledge about his interests and abilities throughout the ESO, with professional guidance from compulsory education. It requires, among other factors, training for tutors and more counselors who attend to young people in all the centers (now there are a hundred).
The next step is to create leading centers of reference in their field of knowledge that attract young people for their excellence and that are benchmarks for other institutes. This is the Barcelona model that also exists in other towns in Catalonia. Barcelona has spread like a ring of very specialized centers that, as soon as they are established, have a strong demand (image and sound, sports, food, health, IT). Most are closely linked to the economic activity they serve, such as the Food Institute in Mercabarna, logistics at the port, IT in district 22@, the epicenter of innovation, which reinforces the good work of the Technological Institute from Barcelona. Health projects are paradigmatic. The Bonanova institute is a reference in health families and is linked to the Parc de Salut del Mar. It not only trains young students who have just finished secondary school or high school, but also workers who want to revalidate their experience with professional certificates or employees who seek to learn throughout their lives. They are what is known as integrated centers (they offer all kinds of offers), and they move away from the model of compulsory education and professional training institutes.
The example of the Hospital del Mar will be extended to the one in Vall d’Hebron, which from next year will have its linked VET institute, the Hospital de Sant Pau, and, outside Barcelona, the Camil de Sant Pere de Ribes or the Trueta in Girona.
Some of the integrated centers have been called “centres of excellence”, and are part of an extensive Spanish network that qualifies them as such for their capacity for innovation, research, entrepreneurship and internationalisation. In Catalonia they are the Compte Rius, Pere Martell, the Lleida Labor School and the Barcelona Labor School and the ITB. They organize teacher training actions at state level and collaborate in their professional sector, in the detection of the need for new profiles and in the review of curricula.
