The Government has approved today the decree that regulates the integrated vocational training centers, which are schools that will offer technical courses for students, workers and the unemployed, of different types and duration, linked to an economic activity. Any person, of any age, can go to an integrated center (specialized in an economic activity) and will receive guidance on the possibility of certifying their knowledge or studying from specific modules to FP master's degrees. These centers will be constituted as such in the 2024-2025 academic year.
Catalonia was the only autonomous community that did not have this aspect regulated, which is one of the keys to modernizing VT promoted by the Spanish Government. The objective is to "professionalize" a large part of the population that lacks formal studies, improve the skills of workers and promote technical training among young people. The training, courses made up of short, modular and cumulative didactic units, adapts to the needs of people at different times in their lives and to those of the productive sector.
The regulation makes it possible to integrate in a center the offer of the new modalities of educational training (initial FP) and occupational training (SOC courses). From certificates of skills and professionalism (people with experience, but without qualifications to endorse it), intermediate and higher level FP cycles, continuous training and specialization courses (FP masters).
The decree is a commitment from the Government to the social partners who signed an agreement in March to date this decree and a map of VET centers in Catalonia with offers linked to the needs of the productive fabric.
survey map
This map, which has suffered continuous delays in its schedule, and which will finally be presented in November, will be built with employers and unions within the framework of the FPCat System Steering Committee and from the 2,233 existing centers (both institutes and centers of the Catalan Employment Service).
The idea is to define labor and training needs on the territory to help promote more effective guidance.
Currently, youth unemployment stands at 20% while the dropout rate stands at 16.9%. These figures do not fit well with the lack of technicians in productive sectors and with the need to reduce the population without studies to levels required by the European Union (from the current 28% to 15%).
For this reason, the FPCat Agency, dependent on the Department of the Presidency, and which is part of Education and Business, has set itself the objective of incorporating 800,000 people into secondary education before 2030, through competency accreditation certificates or through technical training.
After the approval of the decree, the centers must opt for their integrated status as of September, the administration will analyze the requests and approve them during the next academic year.
How will they be?
They will be centers, public or private, specialized in an economic activity typical of the territory in which they are located or they will have a polytechnic character. It is not ruled out that they are newly created, although the Government has not announced the construction of any new ones.
Most of the forty public centers that want to be established before the 2024-2025 academic year will be done with the transformation of existing centers. They will mostly be educational centers that will broaden their offer of studies to workers and the unemployed or will evaluate skills certifications.
Financing and organization
However, the way in which the expansion of the structure of the centers and their need to hire new teaching staff or skills evaluators will be financed has not been defined. The institutes depend on the Department of Education, which has a budget for their operation. It maintains buildings, covers the costs of reforms and maintenance, laboratories and pays teachers. The director reports to this department.
The work centers, for their part, depend on the Department of Business and Labor. Training courses for the unemployed and continuous training for workers are carried out there. The Employment Service of Catalonia is made up of entities, services and programs whose purpose is to promote and develop public employment policy.
The governance of these centers will include the presence of employers, unions and municipalities.
