This year, the Catalan Employment Service has promoted a first experience of vocational training for employment in a dual format within the framework of active employment policies.
Dual training emerged in the field of regulated vocational training, based on the successful experience in some Central European countries and the need to boost and enhance the prestige of vocational training in our country, by improving its quality, aligning it with the needs of businesses, and enhancing student employability.
In dual training, educational centers and companies share responsibility for the student’s learning process, which alternates classic classroom instruction with practical training in a workplace, with the student receiving a salary as compensation.
Dual training is based on the ‘learning by doing’ principle, promoted by Roger Schank, which states that the best learning occurs through experimentation. Has anyone learned to ride a bicycle by attending a master class? The best way to learn is by getting on a bicycle, starting to pedal slowly, and taking a few tumbles. The same applies to occupations: the best way to learn them is by practicing them. Thus, in dual training, students learn in a real context, facing real problems, making mistakes, and learning from them.
Dual training helps improve student motivation, as they clearly see the applicability of what they are studying. It provides them with a first professional experience that will facilitate their job placement, often within the same company where they trained. It allows them to have a first employment relationship, assuming workers’ rights and duties for the first time, and to earn a salary while training, thus preventing school dropout among less privileged groups.
On the other hand, dual training increases the involvement of the business sector in the training of future workers, adapting training to their needs and facilitating the selection and training processes for new hires, all while improving their competitiveness.
According to various reports prepared by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training and the Bertelsmann Foundation, based on the criteria of the European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET) framework, the results achieved so far by dual vocational training in Spain are very positive, although it is necessary to expand its offerings and improve some technical aspects of its implementation.
Given the success of the dual modality within regulated vocational training in recent years, this first dual experience promoted by the Catalan Employment Service within the framework of vocational training for employment, although not yet evaluated, is very good news!
Although active employment policies have included programs combining training and work to improve youth employability for many years, from the trade schools and workshop schools of the 90s to the more recent singular projects for young beneficiaries of the youth guarantee, dual training has elements that allow it to generate a differential impact in this area: the accreditation of training through professional certificates and the active involvement of companies in the training and hiring process of beneficiaries.
Taking advantage of this new dual training offering, Autoocupació is promoting this year the first dual training experience for entrepreneurship. Thus, a first group of 12 young entrepreneurs will participate in a pilot project, combining participation in specialized training actions in business creation and management with the development of their business project, in a cooperative workspace and with the support of a mentor who will guide them throughout their self-employment journey.
And what about universities? If dual training has proven effective in aligning education with business needs and improving student employability, why do universities continue to limit themselves to short periods of professional internships? There are only two specific experiences in applying the dual modality at the University of Lleida and the Rovira i Virgili University.
Many factors limit the implementation of dual training in the university sphere: excessively rigid legislation, excessive corporate academicism, a great distance from the business sector, lack of competition and incentives for innovation, etc. But reality will prevail, and over the years, dual university training will become mainstream, and many more young people will be able to be what they want to be.
