The team of the Khust Vocational Lyceum is convinced that construction professions will become extremely popular in the future. Given that the lyceum is the only one in Zakarpattya that trains plumbers, they are preparing for the upcoming influx of applicants!
Currently, the lyceum is recruiting for training as an installer of sanitary systems and equipment only among 9th grade school leavers. Mykhailo Voloshchuk, Deputy Director for Educational and Production, says that the licence allows to recruit a group of plumbers up to 30 people. However, for several years now, about 50 people have been applying for admission. So the school is preparing files to increase the licence volume and plans to start adult training courses.
Mykhailo Voloshchuk tells us more about the results of the second phase of the EdUP project.
About working with applicants
Preparation for the admission campaign at the lyceum was divided into several stages. The first one takes place in March. The lyceum team visits local schools and general secondary education institutions in the local communities.
At the second stage, they invite teenagers and their parents to an open doors event, with workshops, classrooms, and laboratories. During these guided tours, teenagers are always asked to perform an exercise: balance the wheels of a car, plaster a part of the wall, connect pipes or turn on a faucet. The last stage of career guidance takes place in June. Active advertising of the lyceum begins on social media, and, if possible, representatives of the institution appear on regional radio and television.
“Since we created the plumbing training centre and started participating in the EdUP project, applicants have shown more interest in the institution and the profession. The training is integrated with the profession of gas welder, which also makes studying at the lyceum more attractive. Needless to say, we look at the facts: for three years now, we have been holding a competition for plumbers, and the graduate employment rate is 85-90%,” the Deputy Director notes.
About trainings for teachers
The lyceum says that participation in the EdUP project has left a lot of positive impressions: professional skills competitions are regularly held for students, professional development trainings for teachers, and strategic sessions for administrators.
Before the start of the full-scale war, vocational instructors and teachers regularly attended EdUP’s conferences.
“It happened that the vocational instructors brought ‘gifts’ from the conferences: a radiator in section, some construction tools, pipe samples. They noted that the organisation of the events was at a very high European level. Speakers from different companies spoke about their equipment and covered interesting topics. These events also gave us a lot of contacts with representatives of other institutions and engineers from plumbing companies,” says Mykhailo Voloshchuk.
About competitions for students
Every year, plumbing students take part in a professional skills competition held by EdUP. Despite the martial law, 2023 was no exception.
“The students were satisfied with the competition. They said they had a good experience from participating and also from the masterclass held by the project expert. For the entire period that our institution has been participating in the second phase of EdUP, we have been taking students to competitions and creating conditions for them to see the possibilities of their profession and be motivated to stay in the plumbing industry,” the lyceum representative emphasises.
About training on business planning
During the business planning and grantwriting training organised by EdUP, the VET school presented a plan to develop its logistical facilities by creating training and practical centres.
The institution had tried to implement this idea before. Before the outbreak of full-scale war, Khust Vocational Lyceum applied for a competition organised by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine to create a training and practical centre.
“Without exaggeration, it was one of the strongest project applications from the region. We decided to create a training and practical centre that would combine training in 4 professions: plasterer, tiler, painter, and plasterboard installer. Of course, we have the material and technical base for training in these professions, but we wanted to significantly modernise it. Due to martial law, all development projects were expectedly suspended,” the Deputy Director quoted as saying.
The lyceum is currently cooperating with the local Employment Centre and regional authorities, constantly analysing the needs of the labour market and looking for a donor to implement the project.
What would you like to see in EdUP in the future?
“On behalf of the whole team, I can say that what I liked most about EdUP was the systematic, consistent implementation of goals. Everything is very well organised. The level of management in the EdUP project is very high, and this is a good guarantee for setting new challenging but interesting tasks,” Mykhailo commented.
Khust Vocational Lyceum would like to develop international cooperation: implement a joint project with a foreign educational institution, employers’ organisation, etc.
“Every development programme, especially an international one, has its own peculiarities. This is a very large piece of work that lacks resources, including human resources. Take our application for the creation of a training and practice centre, for example. We worked on it for about three months: we made a plan, a 3D project for the placement of equipment, and an economic justification for the need for the centre. In a programme like Erasmus+, you need to find additional foreign partners. And we're talking about an attempt to launch a project that may not yield the desired result. If EdUP had an international partnership building component in the future, it would be great. Study tours and exchange of experience with foreign institutions could also be part of such a partnership. A few years ago, representatives of the lyceum went on a study tour to the Czech Republic, where they visited a local building materials factory and the educational institutions with which it cooperates. It was an extraordinary experience, which eventually inspired us to create a training and practice centre. Since EdUP is a Ukrainian-Swiss project, it would be interesting to go and see how the plumbing profession is being developed in Switzerland,” Mykhailo Voloshchuk explained.
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The Public-Private Partnership to Improved Plumbing Education (EdUP) is a project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, in partnership with Geberit Trading LLC, implemented by Swisscontact Foundation for Technical Cooperation and supported by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.