SYSTEMATIC APPROACH TO ENHANCE THE PARTICIPATION OF CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY SMES IN APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMS: CO.TUTOR PROJECT

Construction industry has been suffered the economic crisis strongly and now faces an increasingly demand of skilled workforce, due to both its technification increase and the replacement of the workers who will retire in a near future. In this sense, the public authorities are boosting the commitment with the continuous learning that combines training in the classroom together to practices in a company. Co.Tutor project was submitted to face this situation, with the aim to improve the participation of the SMEs of the building industry in training programs that include practices in companies, such as dual system training, professional certificates, etc. For this project, Vocational Training centres and employer's associations of the building industry from Spain and Italy worked together to create a leverage effect in apprenticeship culture, addressing the difficulties faced by the SME to host apprentices and the current blurred figure of intermediary bodies that connect companies and vocational training centres. For building SME, a Strategic Roadmap was defined, learning from EU successful experiences in SMEs participation and working with national stakeholders. As for in-company tutor, the key actor to ensure the student's learning success, a Qualification has been designed, with the aim to be used as a framework where her/his competences may be recognized, on the basis on an ad-hoc skills recognition system. The project was funded by the 2016 Call of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, addressing Key Action 3 of Support for Policy Reform. It started in October 2016 and ended in September 2018. The project was coordinated by Fundacion Laboral de la Construccion, and joined as partners Confederacion Nacional de la Construccion, Associazione Nazionale Costruttori Edili and Ente per la formazione e l'addestramento professionale nell'edilizia. All of them belong, directly or indirectly, in the European Alliance for Apprenticeships, a platform managed by the European Commission since July 2013, which brings together governments with other key stakeholders for the mobility of apprentices.