- You are the head of the ImpulsFP unit within the Sub-directorate General for Programmes and Projects of the Directorate General for Vocational Training at the Department of Education. What are your objectives? How are you organized?
In 2019, there was a reorganization of the sub-directorate for programmes and projects, and it was structured into 5 units; one of them was the innovation unit for programmes and projects that we know today as ImpulsFP. This unit coordinates 6 of the 10 innovation programmes that existed at that time within the Directorate General for VT. Until then, the innovation programmes operated very autonomously and there were few synergies between them. With the creation of the unit, we wanted to make the different actions that the Sub-directorate for programmes and projects generated for the centers visible through a coherent narrative and to promote
new actions and synergies between the innovation programmes. It was a period in which a large number of events that we produce from the sub-directorate were conceived, such as the VT Challenge, the 24 Hours of Innovation, the ‘L’última paraula’ public speaking competition, the FuturaFP technical conferences, the Orienta FP conference, and other events that take place throughout the year.
- Which programmes are you currently promoting?
Currently, the unit
coordinates 6 programmes that have innovation as a common denominator. These are programmes developed in different fields that may seem very disparate, but they make sense in the growth and establishment of strategies for VT educational centers.
Thus, we promote a programme called
Orienta FP, which aims for innovation in a field that until recently was almost untouched in VT: educational and professional guidance. This programme has evolved and currently focuses on very specific aspects of guidance within VT.
Another programme that was very well received by the centers and was born from the demand of the educational centers themselves is
ActivaFP. This programme focuses on helping centers develop active methodologies in the classroom—methodologies that place the student at the center of their own learning. The methodology it has developed par excellence is Project-Based Learning (PBL), although it has explored many others such as gamification and has explored new learning paths for teachers by promoting a pedagogical tourism network.
Two programmes that have focused on improving professional excellence through innovation are
Catskills and
FuturaFP. The first is a competition aimed at helping centers improve the professional skills of their students and is linked to national (Spainskills), European (EuroSkills), and world (WorldSkills) competitions. The second programme goes beyond the daily life of the centers and focuses on improving professional excellence through strategic monitoring and looking at new trends in different productive sectors to bring the immediate future into the classroom, thereby improving the professional skills of both students and teachers.
Another programme that was established as a pilot in 2012 and officially in 2015 was
EmprènFP. This programme has its origins in the 2008 Government agreement aimed at boosting the entrepreneurial spirit of VT students in Catalonia. The initial objective of the programme was the promotion of entrepreneurial culture in VT centers to create the necessary conditions for generating entrepreneurial projects. Two years after its creation, a network of centers was promoted that were willing to help their students carry out entrepreneurial projects.
And finally, the last programme that makes up the ImpulsFP unit is
InnovaFP. This programme specifically seeks interaction between companies and VT centers to generate innovation projects addressing the needs of companies that want to introduce innovation into some part of their production process or into a service or product.
The order in which the programmes are presented is not accidental, as it is the logical order in which we believe a center should develop the different programmes.
- One of your programmes is EmprènFP. What actions do you promote within the framework of this programme? How has the entrepreneurial spirit evolved within vocational training?
Indeed, EmprènFP is one of the programmes that make up the unit and was also one of the first to be created along with InnovaFP. As you correctly mentioned at the beginning, I am the head of the unit, but before that, I was the head of this programme. In 2014, I was tasked with leading and developing it to help VT students awaken their entrepreneurial side. It is a programme that, as I mentioned before, has two main objectives: on one hand, the
promotion of entrepreneurial culture among students and teachers in vocational training centers and the generation of entrepreneurial projects. This has been based on three major pillars for each level of the programme. Regarding entrepreneurial culture, we have supported our actions through training, holding events, and establishing structures in the centers to consolidate the programme so that it does not depend on individuals but becomes part of the educational center’s DNA. Regarding the generation of entrepreneurial projects, the programme has been supported by
three key points:
talent detection, a pre-incubation programme to shape projects with potential, and an incubation programme for projects intended for the market.
Thus, the actions we have carried out are diverse: promoting events to foster entrepreneurial culture and detect talent; training programmes to help teachers understand how to accompany and support young people on their entrepreneurial journey or to share the latest developments in entrepreneurial culture; alliances with different entities such as Autoocupació to develop actions and the programme itself in different areas; and networking among different centers so they can learn from each other and share their visions on entrepreneurship.
- Historically, vocational training has not had the recognition it deserves. Recently, it seems this recognition has improved significantly. What is your assessment of this?
It is true that for a long time vocational training was considered a second-rate option; centers had serious difficulties attracting students. This takes me back to my years as a teacher when, along with other colleagues, we went to secondary schools to promote VT. All this has changed, and the productive sector has understood that
VT students can provide the value they need for their production processes as much as, or even more than, university graduates. The employability rate of vocational training students is in many cases higher than that of a university graduate. Furthermore, a phenomenon we are increasingly seeing is university graduates undergoing career retraining through vocational training degrees. But not everything is as perfect as it seems. Socially, despite the success of VT, we still find the lingering thought that vocational training is a second-rate study or even a failure for not being able to go to university. And at the administrative level, there is a lack of a decisive and real commitment to VT studies that translates into more investment in these programmes.
In the particular case of the Barcelona Education Consortium, through its master plan for the reorganization of VT, I believe we can find a good example of the strategic line to follow to help prestige and boost vocational training.
- The new Vocational Training Law reorganizes and integrates the different subsystems into a single one and promotes the dual format, combining training in centers with professional practice in companies. What are the future prospects for vocational training in Catalonia?
I believe the new VT law is a
good instrument to make VT capitalizable and flexible, and therefore help the population obtain the professional qualifications needed to work in the labor market. There is still a long way to go to see how this law impacts VT and helps bring the productive sector closer to the world of professional education, but
there are elements that show us that, at least, the intention has been to provide this boost, such as the creation of a guidance service in VT centers. Many of the students in VT classrooms, especially in intermediate level cycles, need accompaniment and support in their transitions to the working world. It must be recognized that this is a key piece for students to achieve professional success; it is a very important step in this new VT we want. Or the creation of an innovation lead in educational centers highlights the need to change traditional structures that centers have, which are often not the most suitable for creating the necessary conditions for VT centers to become active agents of the changes needed in today’s society. The implementation of mandatory dual VT, and therefore the increase in the hours the student spends in the company, helps bring educational centers closer to the productive reality of their environment or sector in a more intense way.
- Our motto is “I am what I want to be.” And you, are you?
Right now I am in a phase of change. In 2014, I left the classroom to lead, first the EmprènFP programme and then the ImpulsFP unit, because I firmly believed I could help centers innovate and advance to achieve quality vocational training that faces the world’s challenges head-on and participates in the great challenges and changes we have had to live through in this era. After ten years, I am returning to the classroom next academic year to lead a management project at a vocational training center, the Institut de Seguretat i Mobilitat de Barcelona Guineueta, which has as its central spirit service to society through the vocation of young people who want to join the security forces of the Generalitat. It is an opportunity to put into practice from the classroom everything we have promoted from the Sub-directorate for programmes and projects. So I think I can say that “I am what I want to be”
with the excitement of being able to help many young people first-hand to become what they want to be.
