The European Construction Blueprint project is proceeding well. The four-year construction industry project, which began in 2019, follows EU’s New Skills Agenda and aims at finding solutions for the challenges caused by the availability of competent work force and the development of competences. There is a lot of work to be done, since the competence needs in the industry change constantly due to the growing demands in quality and energy efficiency as well as in sustainable development.
Sataedu coordinates the Construction Blueprint project in Finland. Finnish skills and competences are valued in this four-million-euro project, which is coordinated by Spain and involves 24 European operators. The objective is to develop a model for information exchange between the training providers and companies to anticipate the skill needs the companies might have in the future, and to develop a digital tool to support this information exchange.
A Survey about Skill Needs for 1200 Finnish Companies
The Covid-19 pandemic has made project work more difficult around Europe, but now projects are once again progressing well.
– We are building a channel which improves the dialogue between the training providers and companies. This way the information about the training needs and training supply will quickly reach the parties. By searching for competence shortages our research will also help the Competence Prediction Forum of the Finnish National Agency of Education, says the Project Manager Jari Pentinmäki from Sataedu.
The trainers are expected to have innovativeness in order to provide the working life with diverse learning opportunities. Due to the fast changes caused by new technologies it is especially important to ensure that people already in the field have up-to-date competences. In order to collect the necessary data a survey will be sent to 1200 companies in the construction industry during the summer in Finland. Such survey will be conducted in other project countries as well.
Attractiveness Increases with Quality and Competence
A strong national network of experts supports Sataedu in the project. This network consists of different companies in the industry, inter alia the Finnish Construction Trade Union, the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries RT and the Centre for Occupational Safety.
One of the partners, the Training Centre for Construction Industries RATEKO, has been a pioneer in, inter alia, producing working life oriented online training for the construction industry. The Headmaster of RATEKO, Heidi Husari, emphasizes the significance of this project’s work now and in the future.