Last month, the European Training Foundation's (ETF) Network for Excellence (ENE) and its green partnership GRETA organised a joint meeting with the Danube Region Platform of Centres of Vocational Excellence. The key themes of the meeting were the role of centres of vocational excellence (CoVEs) in providing skills for the green transition and the greening of the energy and construction sectors.
The platform was launched in 2021 by Priority Area 9 of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region in cooperation with ENE. The strategy brings together 14 countries in radically different stages of economic development and membership status (nine EU Member States, three candidate countries and two countries of the European Neighbourhood), namely: Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
ENE supports exemplary training through over 300 CoVEs from more than 40 countries. Some 43 CoVEs have already been founded in the Danube Region.
In their keynote speeches, Tim Van Rie, from the European Commission's Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion department, outlined the steep challenges of the energy crisis since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Fanny Gruböck, Head of Corporate Sustainability at PORR, described in detail the greening of the construction industry and the skills requirements in the coming decades.
During the ensuing round-table discussion, Wolfgang Kern (from Austria's Ministry of Education, Science and Research), Marina Papović (from South Eastern Europe's Education Reform Initiative), Iryna Shumik (from Ukraine's Ministry of Education and Science), Lilia Zestrea (from Moldova's Centre of Excellence in Construction) and the ETF's Susanne M. Nielsen discussed how to nurture the green transition in the construction and energy sectors.
The urgency of the situation was apparent to all. The EU is committed to a binding renewable energy target of 42.5% by 2030, and the construction sector is a major contributor to the climate emergency. Buildings are responsible for 40% of energy consumption, and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions in the EU.
Nielsen, who heads up the ETF's GRETA initiative (Greening Responses to Excellence through Thematic Actions), stressed the importance of a whole system approach to greening, and the need for absolute policy alignment: "skills aligned with construction, construction aligned with obligations from environmental and ecological policies, all working to a strategy that systematises greening".
"We need technical skills," says Nielsen, "transversal skills (including digital skills), but most of all – something that was mentioned again and again – a green mindset."
The meeting was very much about unpacking the green skills concept: what are the skills needed in these two sectors, what do the statistics say. There were presentations from enterprises, ministries, education centres – all saying: "This is the opportunity and we now have the obligation to deliver these skills."
"Construction is the sector that most grew in Covid times," says the ETF's José Manuel Galvin Arribas, "it's the most polluting sector, throwing so much rubbish into the planet. But at the same time it's now embarking on this magical process because what the schools are doing is magical: formulating new processes for raw materials, finding new ways of producing bricks and paint, completely reformulating the construction process."
"Countries need to regulate or frame what a CoVE is, and what CoVEs can contribute to the whole system. Because CoVEs can impact the whole educational sector, even drive socio-economic redevelopment, help a country's reputation..."
But many at the conference noticed what Galvin Arribas summarises as a kind of disconnect between policy-makers and practitioners:
"It's not that they live in parallel worlds, but almost. They need to connect more to each other."
In the afternoon, delegates from Austria, North Macedonia and Romania discussed key developments in the greening of skills. Carmen Mușat, from Romania's National Centre for TVET Development, described the process of creating a compendium of best practice for the green transition involving the collaboration of teachers, representatives of employers and national experts.
The conference was also an eye-opener for ministries to see where their systems are falling short.
"The vocational education and training (VET) system is part of the problem," says Nielsen, "because it's too slow in delivering these skills when we look at the speed required."
It's a point reinforced by Galvin Arribas whose presentation described how only 57% of CoVEs provide programmes addressing green skills for adult learners, and only three out of five have implemented a strategy for green transformation.
Nielsen suggests that the situation could be improved if there were more autonomy:
"Occupational standards are recognised at a national level but for new competences to find their way into the system is not easy. It's almost as if we need 'micro-credentials', a small VET programme that is much more flexible to provide these green skills and competences."
The ETF's Gordon Purvis agrees:
"Organisations need to think in terms of agility and being nimble."
With technological innovations happening so rapidly it's vital that educational centres' curricula are able to adapt swiftly and keep pace with change.
The wider context of the Danube Region Platform is the convergence of countries which are, economically and industrially, very different.
"There is an informal sense of a geographical area that can be developed, that shares trade routes and cultural routes. That's part of the macro-regional strategy," says Purvis.
"The Danube Region also has an importance in terms of accession. Just last week the Ukrainian authorities formally started the accession process, the 'screening' in Brussels. These are things that are happening in the background."
The fact that four Ukrainian delegates travelled 22 hours from a war-torn country bears witness to their commitment to convergence.
"On a macro-level," says Purvis, "the Danube Region gives us a base of international cooperation. There are enlargement partners – not just Ukraine, but Moldova and the West Balkan six – and a good sense of outlining achievements in discussions: 'This is where we are, what we've done so far.'"
It was the first time that the Danube conference was held in person after two previous online events due to Covid.
"It was a win-win," says Galvin Arribas. "The delegates benefited from the expertise we deliver and the partnerships we mobilise. And for us, it offered more experience about how to run policy discussions regarding excellence with target people and gain an extra buy-in from policy officials and practitioners."