Creating VET Business Partnerships for WBL

The aim of the project “Creating VET business partnerships for WBL (Work Based Learning)” is to develop partnerships among the participating organizations in the project, the schools and the companies in their countries in order to establish collaboration among them and to prepare and send VET students for practical placements in companies where they could have work-based learning. The Project partners come from North Macedonia, Germany, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and The Netherlands.

The project is designed to make a connection among the VET schools and companies in order to better prepare VET students for the labour market, as well as help the jobsmarket find the best future employees. Germany and Netherlands (Dutch Foundation of Innovation Welfare 2 Work), are the experts in this field. They have a long lasting experience with the dual educational system where students from VET schools start their practical placements in companies during their school years. So, after finishing high school they are ready to work in the companies, since the companies, had spent time to teach and train them how to work in such companies.

Problems Linking VET with Companies

Unlike them, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece, still have problems in linking VET students with the companies. The students at VET schools after the educational process don`t have big, if any, practical experience in their field of study. Since we can not do much to implement dual system in our (national) educational systems, we have kicked off this project in order to help the students find companies, as well as help the companies find the best students for training and practical placement. We understand that it is difficult for the companies to find the most appropriate students. With this project we want to help the companies get the best students, and also help the best students find the most
appropriate company for placement. The companies should realize the importance of having VET students for practical placements as a step towards recruiting their future employees.

For the purpose of this project we will organize a training in Leipzig, Germany. Two representatives from each participating organization, will be trained by experts in this field from Germany. They will share the German experience and teach the participants how to establish the business partnerships and how to train teachers from schools and mentors from the companies, in order to organize good work placements, internships and apprenticeships for the students.