As in many past occasions, Albo continues to support schools, education and young people in general. This time we visited the Vlasotince Technical School and donated working vests, protective gloves and glasses to the school and students studying there.
With school director Milivoj Djordjevic, we talked about the functioning of this unique school, which prepares its students for the future through cooperation with the economy. Namely, the Technical School Vlasotince applies a model of dual education, which in Serbia has so far been a pilot project, but from the new 2019/20. school year will begin its full application for all secondary vocational schools. Dual education is a system of education in which students, in addition to theoretical and practical instruction in school, have additional practical training with employers, where in the real work environment they acquire all the necessary practical skills and knowledge.
“The purpose of education is to train young people to face the challenges that the future brings them. Our school cooperates with the economy, in a way that it can offer it`s students education for the professions that are required on the labor market, that is, with whom they can get employed or, if they want to, continue their education, “said director Djordjevic.
For this reason, the school, the Municipality of Vlasotince and the German GIZ International Cooperation Organization entered into a public-private partnership with the companies “Falke”, “Gruner”, “Elrad”, “Elrad Wire Systems”, IGM “Mladost” and SLR “Vitko “. These companies take a serious approach to investing in education because they are aware that, through the practical education that is implemented in their production, students can learn and advance according to their needs. In addition to quality practical teaching, modern machines and with the supervision and support of instructors trained to work with young people, companies provide students with a fee for learning through work. For most young people, this is an additional incentive and motivation to seriously and consciously fulfill the obligations that students have.
The school received funds from the Municipality of Vlasotince and the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany for the reconstruction of school workshops through the project of the German development cooperation “Reform of secondary vocational education”. The bulk of work on reconstruction by volunteer work during the summer was carried out by teachers and students. In the last few years, the Technical School has provided its students with benefits such as a study trip to a partner school in Germany, the development of applicable entrepreneurial skills, and support for young people from marginalized groups to attend school.
We are glad that we helped the functioning of the Technical School Vlasotince, which can be used for other schools as a model of dual education and how to help young people to enter the work process as soon as possible and become independent. We will continue to monitor the successes of the Technical School of Vlasotince and its students and we believe that we will meet again on some other nice occasion.
