In recent years, Vocational Training has been experiencing an impulse that seeks to strengthen this type of training, which for decades has remained in the shadow of university studies. Since the 2017 academic year, the number of enrollments in this training branch has increased by 19.5%, causing many public centers to have sold out their places in record time. In addition, the Government expects that by 2025, half of employment opportunities will be for workers with medium qualifications, that is, technicians and higher technicians. In this context, the new Organic Law on the Organization and Integration of the new Vocational Training was approved last March, which has brought with it a reform whose main objective is to improve the employability of young people and not so young people. “Unemployment affects up to 6 times less those people with studies in the new Vocational Training”, says the Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Pilar Alegría, who describes this new law as ‘strategic’ to try to reduce the youth unemployment rate . The parliamentary path to approve the new law has been long, since its first draft was presented in June 2021 when Isabel Celaá represented this ministerial portfolio, but it is already in force.
All FP will be dual
The main change with respect to the previous FP is that now all its offer will have a dual and integrated character. This implies that the student body combines the stay in the educational center with obligatory internships in companies in the sector that will also be responsible for the students’ training. With regard to integration, the change lies in the fact that there will no longer be a differentiation between VET for the educational system, which was aimed at young people, and VET for employment, whose profile was for adults.
In addition, another of its characteristics is that it is divided into two types: the new general Dual Vocational Training, with a period of stay in the company of between 25% and 35% of the total duration of the training, and the commitment of the company to assume up to 20% of the content and learning outcomes of the curriculum. And on the other hand, the new Advanced Dual Vocational Training, with in-company training between 35% and 50% of the total duration of the training, as well as the delivery by the workplace of up to 40% of the professional modules of the curriculum. Contact with the company will take place from the first trimester of training and each student must have a personalized plan. As a novelty, the figure of the center’s dual tutor and the company’s dual tutor will be incorporated, who will carry out, among other tasks, the evaluation of the student’s learning in each of their respective spaces, although the final evaluation will be the responsibility of the educational center . In addition, for the first time Dual FP students will contribute to Social Security during their internship period and will have to sign a contract with the companies.
Different degrees of specialization
The new regulations also establish a modular and flexible offer that allows progress through five ascending grades. In this way, students are given the option of designing and configuring their own itineraries adapted to professional expectations, personal circumstances or work needs.
Grade A In this degree are the most basic offers that guarantee obtaining a partial accreditation of competence. Grade B Certificate of Professional Competence. This degree can be obtained by overcoming said training or by accumulating several titles from the previous level. Grade C Professional Certificate, which corresponds to several professional modules. These first three levels are designed for those people who have extensive work experience in a given sector but who do not have any qualifications to back it up. With them, the people who carry them out will be able to have an official title in the event of becoming unemployed and having to look for work again. Until now, accrediting the skills of this type of person was a very slow process, but with the new system, the Ministry plans to accredit the professional skills of more than three million workers in four years.
Grade D Formative Cycles (Basic Grade, Intermediate Grade and Higher Grade). All this offer will have a dual character, therefore the students who carry them out must go through a company in an internship period. The Basic Degree is designed for students who have special educational needs and who have already exhausted the adaptation measures of the ordinary educational offer. To access the Intermediate Degree, you must have a Secondary School degree and a Baccalaureate degree to be able to take a Higher Degree. E grade Specialization courses. People who pass a specialization course of the new Intermediate Professional Training will obtain a title of Specialist of the corresponding professional profile. Those who pass a specialization course of the new advanced professional training will obtain the title of Professional Master. They represent an ‘extra’ training that allows students who have a Training Cycle to specialize in a specific field of their sector. These are divided into professional families and are increasingly adapting to the needs of the current market. An example of these degrees are the courses on ‘Implementation of 5G networks’ or ‘Artificial Intelligence and Big Data’.
More places and more educational offer
The changes brought about by the new law will materialize next academic year 2022/2023 and the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training is working so that future VET students have a greater offer. To do this, new degrees are being created, more places in training centers as well as new centers in which to take this type of studies. Another of the Government’s forecasts is that within three years, 10% of the offer will be bilingual.
