The Director General of Planning, Schools and Vocational Training of the Government of Aragon, Luis Mallada, took part in the session 'Raising the bar – attracting talent by creating attraction', jointly organized by Aragon, the Swedish city of Gothenburg and the Danish region of Zealand. The meeting addressed the difficulties faced by different European territories in attracting, recruiting and retaining qualified professionals in sectors experiencing staff shortages.
“Vocational Education and Training must be a tool capable of responding to the real needs of our productive sector while also offering young people training pathways that bring them closer to employment from the outset,” Mallada argued. He said that cooperation between educational centers and companies makes it possible to “create talent, facilitate its entry into the labor market and help that talent remain in our territory”.
BETWEEN 35% AND 50% OF TRAINING TAKES PLACE IN COMPANIES
Ester Torres Abizanda, a teaching technical adviser at the Vocational Training Service, was responsible for explaining how the Aragonese model works. One of the main features of Intensive Dual VET is that between 35% and 50% of students’ training pathway takes place in real work environments, allowing them to gain practical experience from the earliest stages of their training.
Companies also take part in designing the programs, collaborating in defining skills, learning activities and content according to the needs of each sector. The system also includes dual mentoring, with one tutor at the educational center and another at the company, who coordinate their monitoring of the students.
“It is not simply about training more people, but about providing better training and doing so in connection with the needs that exist in each territory,” Mallada explained. The aim, he added, is for students to become familiar at an early stage with the professional environment in which they can develop their careers, while companies play an active role throughout the process.
EMPLOYMENT RATE OF MORE THAN 80%
The Government of Aragon highlights that this model achieves an employment rate of more than 80%. It also maintains that the model helps students continue working at the companies where they completed their training and makes it possible to reduce hiring times in professions where finding qualified workers is particularly difficult.
Aragon’s participation in EURegionsWeek also provided an opportunity to learn about other European models. The same session featured Zealand’s Recruit & Retain program, aimed at healthcare professionals, and Gothenburg’s New Recruits project, designed to facilitate the recruitment and retention of new workers in social services.
“Europe needs to share the solutions that are working in its territories,” Mallada said. In this regard, Aragon believes that its presence in Brussels allows it both to showcase how its Intensive Dual VET operates and to learn from other European regions’ experiences in tackling a common problem: the shortage of professional profiles and the mismatch between available training and labor market needs.
