CINEA organized the 13th edition of the BUILD UP Skills European exchange meeting under the BUILD UP Skills initiative on 30th November 2021 (more info on the link). The meeting aimed to foster the exchange of ideas and transfer of the rich technical expertise and experience that exists within the different national BUILD UP Skills Consortia as some of the challenges in the building sector are country-specific, but most are of common nature across many countries.With over 100 representatives from across 20 EUfunded projects – mostly from H2020 – the event provided an opportunity to learn from each other and discuss common challenges and good practices. Representatives from DG Energy, DG Employment, DG Internal Market, and DG Environment participated to update participants on the latest policy developments. SEEtheSkills have taken an active role at the meeting by presenting its objectives and approach at the main plenary session in the group of new coming projects in the H2020 family. Its 3V approach was elaborated as an innovative implementation of the known ‘V’ actions in a collaborative manner Visibility-Validation-Value in order to tackle market demand of energy skills in construction. A particular contribution of SEEtheSkills was given within breakout session on skills validation mechanisms. While developing new training interventions is a must to capture the emerging skills required from the market and it is equally important to make sure trained professionals get visible and recognised. This session explored various mechanisms to recognise and validate energy skills, based on projects’ experiences.
In its frame SEEtheSkills presented the specific issue of RPL as skills validation mechanism: feasibility and opportunities. The presentation covered the topics of:
- How will SEEtheSkills project approach to leveling of energy skills and identifying mismatching?
- Is mutual recognition between countries possible and how?
- How to VALIDATE the diverse achievements of building professionals?
- Ideas to empower digital tools for Recognition of Prior Learning
These answers and further discussion in the 3 parallel sub-groups on the topic of recognition of prior learning have attracted a significant interest among the audience, especially regarding the shared good practice experience of piloting of this methodology on a significant number of more than 1200 construction workers during the previous projects, predecessors of SEEtheSkills. This knowledge background will be adequately upgraded during the next project phases of SEEtheSkills, by transferring of Methodology for recognition of prior learning in the wider interregional level and developing e-tools for its implementation, serving for appropriate transition of the process towards digital trends.
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Reported by prof. Lihnida Stojanovska-Georgievska, Project Quality Assurance manager, Ss Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje
