The polytechnic school is committed to improving the employability of professionals in the surrounding companies.

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The polytechnic school is committed to improving the employability of professionals in the surrounding companies.

EMPLOYABILITY

The polytechnic school is committed to improving the employability of professionals in the surrounding companies.

A Consortium made up of MONDRAGON, Alecop, Udalaitz, Mondragon Unibertsitatea and Miguel Altuna Lanbide Heziketa Institutua has promoted a qualification and requalification programme for people from Udalaitz and Cikautxo. The project was launched two years ago with a budget of 350,000 euros and has been financed by CEPES, the European Social Fund and LagunAro, EPSV.

2023·04·05

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For two and a half years, the entities involved in the project have been working to activate the set of skills and attitudes that enable people to get and keep a job in a manufacturing environment that is being digitised at an accelerated pace. It has been a successful pilot experience for all actors, with results that have exceeded initial expectations.

Changes in the industrial environment are becoming faster and faster and companies and professionals have to adapt as soon as possible. Nowadays, companies have to face the challenges of digitalisation with a veteran workforce, which makes a process of requalification necessary. "It is a significant project that has been worked on jointly, with the MONDRAGON ecosystem and in intercooperation between different organisations, with a very good result," says Iñigo Larrea (MONDRAGON).

The initiative started with a needs study and a clear area was identified: the digitalisation of factories and its challenges. Two training courses were then launched that were directly linked to the needs identified:

  • Digital Assembly Operator
  • Logistics, warehouse-loader

The experience has been a success and the Consortium is already thinking of reissuing new courses, 'tailor-made' for cooperatives, adaptable and flexible training, with a syllabus and curriculum developed together with the company itself, and another line of more general training for people who are currently in Udalaitz.

"In Udalaitz the demand for employment is mainly in industrial fields, in production and logistics. And the experience of all these years has taught us that employability and polyvalence are very important. The Consortium and the training that we have promoted through it have allowed us to train in very specific and future-oriented areas".

Digital content, adaptable and flexible

The training, structured in different modules, has allowed students to follow the courses online, using a tablet, and also in face-to-face sessions with the teaching staff.

For Nieves Alcain, the experience has been worthwhile. "At Cikautxo we have had the invaluable collaboration of the cooperative itself and we wanted to respond to the organisation's own needs". The courses have made it possible to train and re-qualify several workers at the cooperative located in Berriatúa.

Urtzi Gurutziaga is responsible for the industrialisation of the Fluid Conduction Pipes business at Cikautxo and one of the people who has actively participated in promoting the training courses. "Cikautxo has eight production plants in the world and in many of them, such as in Mexico, India or Slovakia, we are tripling the workforce. So we need to standardise training, generate a platform that allows us, in an agile way, to complete training sessions and qualify our people, and this first experience has been very good".

The results and the final evaluation of the courses have been excellent. Now it is time to keep working. To continue designing new courses, with new partners, and in cooperatives with specific needs. For the Consortium it has only just begun, and soon they will continue to feed the shared objective, employability.