School and companies an alliance for the future – Il Sole 24 Ore

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This article was published on Oct. 13, 2015 at 6:57.
The last change is the October 13, 2015 at 08:41.

The school-work ( work based learning ) is finally becoming a reality in our country and this requires us to adopt new ways of thinking and new behaviors to deal with one of the biggest challenges we face: the renewal of the Italian educational model. We must innovate to manage and do not suffer what technological innovation and the industrial revolution, called “Industry 4.0,” require us. The changes in the industry of the future will affect the production processes, work organization and especially the skills of people who will be called upon to adopt them. The “great transformation” taking place at the global level does not provide for compromises: you come out winners or losers. We can not, therefore, deal with it in silos; we need to create a system of strong alliances and between the business world and the world of education is certainly strategic.

School and business, together, reinforce each other. And their strength is the strength of the youth of this country. This is the great message of reform. Our guys have to rely more and more on an education system open and modern, to help them rediscover the pleasure of working, to form a thought, and the manual to get in touch immediately with the world of work and business. The challenge is not small. It implies that all companies, even those that until now have never interacted with the schools, are available to accommodate students in alternate paths. The commitment is very high. We ask the government that puts the Italian companies in a position to accept this great challenge is of a legal nature which through incentives through economic incentives.

Even schools must change their approach to education. No to rote learning, no identification of teaching with any dangerous substances. Not to consider the class as a unique inseparable. There should be flexibility in the programs and classroom time in order to allow a rotation of the boys also in the company. Schools and businesses will also collaborate in the design of educational programs useful to the achievement of the required skills and assessment of the skills acquired by the young people at the end of the path alternation. Alternating study and work as a methodology for effective learning is not new in itself. In Europe it is a common practice. Our country will arrive late, too long weighed down by prejudices rooted and widespread in the world of work and business, and experienced more as a place of exploitation and executive work, which is not like that of growth, experience, individual learning and intelligent work. This is also why we can not rely on a single model of alternating Italian, but not starting from scratch.

Italian schools that have entered into alternating are many (according to the Ministry of Education more than 40%) and projects of the system that can be considered, at least partially of alternation, are more than 10 thousand. We can therefore count on lots of experiences in which businesses and schools have collaborated freely without preconceived models. So many companies have opened their doors to students and the results were positive training and employment. This occurred mainly where the school-enterprise networks work, which is why the territorial factor is decisive: we are the country of the industrial districts, we can become one of the sectors intelligent. But we need to pool these valuable experiences and give precise and useful operational guidance. For this, Federmeccanica launched together with the Ministry of Education project “Traineeship”, the first system action, concrete and valid throughout the national territory from Pordenone to Palermo for the gradual spread of alternation in the Italian school. Will be defined, along with 50 technical and vocational schools, selected by public announcement, 5 thousand students and 600 teachers tutor, a model of school-work valid for engineering firms and for the country.

Fabio Storchi is president of Federmeccanica

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