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Action plans for further development

Based on all the experiences and Good practices of the PROGRESS project all partners developed an action plan for further development of their own school. All partners were very positive about all the inspiration and ideas the project has brought them.

This is a summary of all these innovative and ambitious plans. We wish everyone every success in realizing these plans!

CIFEA de Molina de Segura

The CIFEA de Molina de Segura’s action plan is designed to address the challenges in the agricultural sector, including the need to attract young people with skills in new technologies, promote sustainability and environmental protection, and make agricultural activity more attractive for students from urban areas. The plan includes four objectives which are differentiated into four levels: regulated training, continuous training, networks and associates, and green skills development.

The first objective aims to stabilize enrolment numbers at lower EQF levels, promote gender equality in classrooms, establish an age group of students between 18-26 years, offer more online courses and activities in digital format, direct school activities to principles based on sustainability and environmental protection, and attract foreign students. In addition, the objective includes developing modular vocational education and training and attracting students from urban areas.

The second objective focuses on continuous training for adults and training for employment, aiming to increase the number of female enrolments, incorporate environmental aspects in training for adults, recognize competence units in adults, and expand the dissemination of certification processes.

The third objective aims to strengthen the development of Erasmus+ projects and participate in international cooperation projects with non-governmental organizations, develop values of social solidarity through blood donation campaigns, sensitize against gender violence, and strengthen relationships with business associations in the sector and professional agricultural organizations.

The fourth objective aims to contribute knowledge about sustainability and environmental education, develop green skills and increase technical knowledge, and improve the dissemination of training offers.

The action plan is designed to be measurable, and indicators have been defined to monitor progress towards the defined objectives.

Savonia University of Applied Sciences

Objective of the action plan: To attract new target groups, especially international students and immigrants, and equip students with the necessary skills for the changing work life.

Tasks and Activities

  • Marketing and outreach efforts through various channels, including social media, to attract new students
  • Up-to-date and interesting study plans that follow changes in society and working life, with input from working life partners and RDI-projects
  • Creating unique and attractive facilities, such as a green campus and living labs, to appeal to students
  • Implementing different pedagogies, including day, blended, and hybrid learning, with proper tools and skills for online teaching and more interactivity in lessons
  • Motivating students through interesting lessons, assignments, and projects, as well as improving guidance and counseling services
  • Focusing on practical training periods and developing practical skills, and improving the skills of teachers and RDI staff
  • Ensuring quality in all aspects of the education program.

Green Academy

The Green Academy in Denmark has developed an action plan to anchor the results of the Progress project over the past three years within the organization. The main objective is to focus on primary school pupils who are considering choosing an ordinary high school and show them the benefits of the vocational upper secondary education (EUX).

The academy aims to attract approximately 90 students directly from primary school, with at least 30 of them choosing the vocational upper secondary education. Additionally, they plan to maintain the annual intake of students who do not come directly from primary school at around 200-220 students.

The academy intends to achieve these objectives by involving as many students, teachers, and staff as possible in different projects, both at the national and international level. They are working closely with different stakeholders such as government representatives and small-medium enterprises to create a synergy in project management. The academy is also focusing on e-learning and digital projects, student mobility, and developing modern facilities with a focus on sustainability.

Yuverta

Yuverta is the largest secondary and vocational trainer in Europe in the blue-green domain, with 36 secondary schools, 20 VET locations, and thousands of professionals trained every year. The institution’s mission is to train people for a profession in the blue-green domain and for an independent existence in society, specifically for tasks such as making agriculture more sustainable, improving biodiversity and nature, animal welfare, sustainable urbanization, health and lifestyle, increasing the quality of water and water management, reducing waste flows, energy transition, and climate. Yuverta aims to actively contribute to a sustainable world and the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Yuverta faces the challenge of attracting new target groups, particularly in urban areas, to its green education programs. The institution plans to achieve this by changing its image from agricultural education to a school with a broad offering on topics that are interesting and important to students from this decade, topics that can lead to meaningful careers and a better life for all.

To achieve its objectives, Yuverta has set overall goals, such as 80% of Yuverta’s stakeholders taking part in the realization of at least four SDGs within their region, and the integration of SDGs in all curricula to the experience of 80% of all its students and other stakeholders. The institution has also created an impact strategy on sustainability by breaking down the broad theme into smaller parts, so everyone can oversee and play a part.

Terra

Terra, an organization that has organized itself into a team-centered approach, wants to incorporate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into its curricula and pedagogy, by installing a practorate called ‘Entrepreneurial learning with and from the SDG goals’. The primary goal of the practorate is to provide inclusive and high-quality education while striving for equal opportunities for lifelong learning for all, in connection with the regional environment, in line with SDG 4.

The practorate aims to conduct research using the ‘whole school approach for sustainable development’ and investigate how the SDGs can be incorporated into the curricula, pedagogy, and didactics of the institutions so that every student can gain experience with and knowledge about them. The research also focuses on how business operations, professionalization, and the environment of the institutions can create a learning climate to achieve this goal. The practorate hopes to attract another category of students who were not previously interested in green education by collaborating with a grey education institute.

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Countries Curriculum & Program Spain

Examples of Social Circular Economy in VET

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Countries Spain Students & Target Groups

What do students think?

Juan Carlos Garcia Salvador from CIFEA MOLINA de Segura in Spian has worked out a continuous evaluation system for students and presented his ideas and example during our project meeting in Murcia. The presentation can be downloaded.

It was a very inspring session in which we spoke with students about their ideas on developing a sustainable school and training programs.

Most important questions to discuss with students are:

  • How can VET institutions contribute to a more sustainable society?
  • Is the education system in tune with a sustainable society?
  • How can the students contribute to achieving our vision as a VET institution?
  • What needs do our teachers have?
  • What examples of good practices have the students in mind?

The example susrvey is also available (in Spanish).

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Countries Spain Vision & Ambition

Towards a sustainable school

CIFEA de Molina de Segura in Spain worked on ideas becoming a sustainable school in 2026. Their mission:

Education is the way , and we can offer you a wide range of
reasons to be part of our sustainable community. Learn
and be free. Vocational education is your way.

Juan Carlos Garcia Salvador

Main challenge regarding this mission is that students should feel that they are part of the solution. The VET students have to feel useful for a sustainable society and the school should give them the tools to make the students feel like this.

The first ideas of CIFEA de Molina de Segura were presented during our meeting in Spain and they can be found in this presentation.

[Picture Gerd Altmann via Pixabay]

Categories
Countries School Environment Spain

Renewal of the job market?

CIFEA DE MOLINA de Segura in Spain provides students with training related to the processed food and environmental sectors. For these vocational training schools it is essential to be one step ahead of the social and professional reality of both sectors.

Each course, from the CIFEA DE MOLINA, around 70 students are
promoted in training cycles of families in the food industry, safety and environment that joins the labour market.

To improve the training of our students and provide them with the skills for sustainability that society and the labour market requirements, we share with other European green schools, cooperation and innovation projects of the Erasmus program, which pose the same questions and provide us with feedback in the process of self reflection.

These questions are:

  • With whom do we learn?
  • What is the environment in which we develop our learning?
  • How does the environment affect training?
  • What are the needs of society and the labour market concerning sustainable development?
  • How can we cooperate with companies and partners so that training contributes to sustainable production systems?
  • What green skills do we have to strengthen in learning?
  • How can we adapt the curricula of the cycles?
  • What teaching methodologies are suitable for teaching the SDGs?

In this presentation CIFEA MOLINA present the answers to these question from their point of view.

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Countries School Environment Spain

School network and associates CIFEA of Molina

As one of the activities of PROGRESS Juan Carlos Garcia Salvador form CIFEA of Molina analysed the school network and associates. During the Transnational projectmeeting in Spain the results were presented and discussed with some of the partners in the project.

The school has a network of partners from Non-profit Organizations, Regional Government,  Agroindustry Associations, Ecological Associations, Agricultural professional organizations and  Companies. As a result of the Erasmus+ program they have partners all over Europe for the mobility of students and within several cooperative and innovative projects

This network is important for the school because they can learn a lot from these partnerships, for example: about other points of view, solidarity, cultural differences, new developments in education and the agricultural sector, social awareness and equality.

A full description and analysis of the network can downloaded as a presentation.

Categories
Countries Spain Students & Target Groups

Student trends CIFEA of Molina in Spain

CIFEA de Molina de Segura is an agricultural school in Murcia region in Spain. The school offers Vocational education, lifelong learning and occupational training for unemployed people. All education is related to the food industry or Security and environment sector on EQF3 or EQF4 level. The canning industry is important in the region and the school offers a professional program for manufacture for canned vegetables.  Examples of new trainings are related to drones, vertical gardens and aquaponics.  A complete overview of the educational program at CIFEA the Molina can be found  through the website of CIFEA of Molina.

Juan Carlos Garcia Salvador form CIFEA de Molina researched student trends in recent years. He concluded that

  1. CIFEA needs to make more efforts to attract new students in courses for low EQF levels (medium degree) than in other upper EQF levels (higher degree).
  2. Campaigns to attract new students must be designed and directed towards women and men at the same time, taking care of gender equality. During the last years, the number of women enrolments is growing up faster than men. VET is attractive for women.
  3. Thee target group of the school have an age between 18 – 26 years old and the actions of dissemination therefore should  use communication channels for young people. For these groups it´s also important to open possibilities for online learning with some lessons or activities (audio-visual & online teaching materials). Activities must also be directed to sustainability and equality issue.
  4. It might also be profitable to increase the efforts to attract foreign students to VET. The school must be an space for social integration and need to increase skills to work in multicultural teams. In the region of Murcia there are many students that are born in other countries but have the Spanish nationality.
  5. Students from urban areas are more unstable than students from non-urban areas. In periods whit a low level of enrolments the recruitment efforts must be directed to urban students.

More detailed presentation can be downloaden here.

Categories
Countries School Environment Spain WSA

Important questions to ask regarding the effects of the renewal of the job market on school programs

For vocational training schools in the agri-food and environmental sectors, it is essential to be one step ahead of the social and professional reality of both sectors. Each course, from the CIFEA DE MOLINA, around 70 students are promoted in training cycles of families in the food industry, safety and environment that joins the labour market.

To improve the training of our students and provide them with the skills for sustainability that society and the labour market requirements, we share with other European green schools, cooperation and innovation projects of the Erasmus + program, which pose the same questions and provide us with feedback in the process of self-reflection. Understanding the school as a “whole” (curricula, pedagogy, school environment, professional development and the management of the school itself) we ask ourselves the following questions.

  • With whom do we learn? What is the environment in which we develop our learning? What people are involved in the formation of students.
  • What are the needs of society and the labour market concerning sustainable development? Identifying both needs will be essential to ensure that we provide students with the appropriate skills to guarantee the change towards a sustainable productive sector that requires the participation of everybody.
  • How does the environment affect training? The school environment is an example of sustainability.
  • How can we cooperate with companies and partners so that training contributes to sustainable production systems? It is essential to establish cooperation links between the business sector, associates and the school, to update the training objectives. This process must be constant, flexible and active.
  • What green skills do we have to strengthen in learning? We have to know what we need to develop. This question is essential.
  • How can we adapt the curricula of the cycles? Establishing mechanisms for adapting educational programs to changes in production systems is essential to be able to prepare for the future.
  • What teaching methodologies are suitable for teaching the SDGs? The way of educating in the SDGs must be different from the classic didactic methodology used in classrooms because, in addition to training, it must raise awareness, arouse interest in students, generate skills and provide them with an evaluation capacity that allows them to decide and participate. in a sustainable society. Changes affect all of us.

[Photo by Artem Beliaikin from Pexels]

Categories
Countries School Environment Spain

Good Practice La Moraleja Spain

This good practice about zero miles food (km 0) clearly expresses how the whole school approach gives a new vision to integrate sustainability issues structurally and coherently into the school organization. The green school (livestock & agriculture) is giving shape to education for a sustainable future.

“On the trail of a sustainable community in food production” is their vision when they talk about a sustainable society.

Really when we are doing the weekly shopping, are we thinking about where our food is produced? Is the farm close or far from the supermarket? What is the environmental impact of my food?

We need an answer to all these questions, awareness for C02 footprint reduction and making our daily life more sustainable.

The school environment is the key, because the opinion of students, teachers, society and stakeholders (farmers & cattle breeders), cooperate and give us their point of view about zero miles food and make a commitment for the future. Look at the video in our video series!

Are you ready?

Let’s go, think local go global.

Categories
Countries Curriculum & Program Spain

Cultural week “To your health”

In the last course, the CIFEA DE MOLINA in Spain organized a cultural week with the topic “to your health”. Our objective was to attract the students´ interest in food technology, healthy alimentation and Foodtopia, another way to understand the sustainability in the production of dishes. That week all students and teachers had an innovation experience, knowing how we must feed in three important aspects, food composition, food technology and food sustainability.

Every day we are eating, and this activity is important for personal and social development and has consequences for the environment. Foodtopia is the idea of a new concept in alimentation, using vegetables out of commercial categories but with all standards of quality. Are you sure that you need a marvellous pepper or could be enough one with some commercial faults? How many vegetables do we need to take out the rubbish? Is your salad to eat or to see?

With the dissemination of this week, we had the opportunity to increase our impact on the local and regional society. This is an example of good practices understanding how the school is a part of the sustainable society and world. We do not need more we have enough to live.

The full presentation about this initiative: VIEW PRESENTATION

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