SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 6. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The business sector has valued the opportunity represented by the development of Dual Vocational Training (FP) in the Canary Islands as a source of job creation, wealth and economic activity, but they maintain that for it to be really successful in the Islands it would be necessary to influence its introduction in micro-SMEs, since most Canarian companies have less than ten workers on their staff.
In a round table on the commitment and proposals of the business community for and for Vocational Training, within the framework of the second edition of the Summer Campus of the Fundación Canarias Siglo XXI, the president of the Federation of Entrepreneurs of La Palma (Fedepalma), David Fuentes highlighted that Dual Vocational Training is a “great tool” and a “benefit” that companies will have in the future and that it will also allow them to instill a “culture of effort” in students, since during their training process they will to be “fully integrated” into the company.
In any case, David Fuentes stressed that first a series of doubts and problems would have to be cleared up in relation to Dual Vocational Training, for example, the benefit that the companies that are going to join this Vocational Training modality will have, what it could happen with the most veteran workers of said companies or what happens when the master has less training than the apprentice himself.
The president of the Federation of Employers’ Associations (FAEP), Mercedes J. Hernández, agreed that Dual Vocational Training is an “excellent tool” that can improve the competitiveness of companies, the ability of students and that it contributes directly reduce the youth unemployment rate.
On the other hand, Mercedes J. Hernández pointed out that for Dual Vocational Training to be successful “all the actors involved in it have to contribute, be an active and critical part of each of the difficulties, without giving up all the advantages”. Similarly, she advocated that business confederations act as a link between the Public Administration, training centers and the business fabric to also contribute to the promotion of Dual FP in the Islands.
The president of Asprocan, Domingo Martín, pointed out the difficulties that the development of Dual Vocational Training in the Archipelago can have, in the sense that Canarian companies are “very small” and sometimes they do not have “hole” to qualify for training to the students. However, he also shares that it is a “positive collaboration”, both for companies and for students.
The president of the CEOE Tenerife training commission, Jorge Asín, stressed that Dual Vocational Training is a “fundamental issue” but warned that in the Canary Islands “it will have its complexity”, especially its introduction in the services sector. In his opinion, the success of Dual Vocational Training in the Islands depends on its being introduced to micro-SMEs and, at the same time, because there are company tutors, that is, people trained in companies to be able to teach students who are going to be working and studying at the same time.
THE FP AND THE NEED FOR LABOR.
One of the main questions regarding the current Vocational Training system is whether it is allowing to cover the workforce needs that companies demand. In this regard, the president of the Federation of Entrepreneurs of La Palma (Fedepalma), David Fuentes, does not believe that the offer is really adjusting to the demand that the employer has.
According to David Fuentes, “supply is on one side and demand is absolutely on the other, and we are finding jobs that are impossible to fill at the moment on the island of La Palma”. To this must be added that many palm students only aim to go to work on other islands, which further aggravates the problem.
He also complained that the FP internships are “too short”, so the student arrives at a company “too green, is not involved and what he wants is to pass and get rid of the problem”. In this sense, he indicated that the problem that the employer has when hiring these people is that they do not have sufficient training and, in the end, they are forced to have to do a “second training” for that employee, so that in the end they prefer to opt for other types of profiles.
For the president of the Federation of Entrepreneurs’ Associations (FAEP), Mercedes J. Hernández, it is important that all the institutional, economic and social tools that guarantee that all regulated training and academic offerings are urgently and forward-looking that occurs in La Palma allows to cover the job vacancies that exist on the Island. At the same time, he stressed that La Palma has shown that, in no way, training can go outside the evolution of the reconstruction of the territory after the eruption of the volcano.
For his part, the president of Asprocan, Domingo Martín, affirmed that there are many needs on the Island that are not filled by Education. Thus, in the case of the agricultural sector, he proposes influencing the formation of associated work cooperatives, so that people learn to work together. He is also committed to including business training as a subject to motivate students to create companies and not just work as civil servants.
But, above all, he believes that public bodies have to educate people in those sectors that can be strategic in the future and exportable. For example, he considers that La Palma should have a permanent cheese training center, since it is a strategic product that has an outlet and can compete with any other product. But he also admits that more tourist training is needed.
The president of the CEOE Tenerife training commission, Jorge Asín, recognized that applying a change in the Public Administration regarding Vocational Training is “slow and complicated”. In his opinion, we should try to be more flexible and look for systems that contribute to the participation of private initiative.
Finally, he recalled that the Islands live mainly from tourism; For this reason, he reiterated that the introduction of VT in the service sector is “much more complicated” than in other sectors such as industry, since in the Canary Islands there are many micro-SMEs and the self-employed; in the same way that he considers that the same training cycles cannot be had for so many years because “in the end they become saturated”.
