A new border region project that will recruit, train, retrain and upskill young people and adults for professions to enable energy transition has started. For the next three years, Avans University of Applied Sciences will be the secretary of the Energy(k) Education project, which is being implemented from the Interreg programme Flanders Netherlands with a grant from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). In the project, 18 educational institutions, governments, a regional career fund, a regional intermediary and a business organisation from the south of the Netherlands and Flanders are working together. The project came about last year through intensive cooperation between the project partners and Promint project management and has a size of €4,200,000.
Energy transition requires skilled personnel
Over the past 10 years, the focus of the energy transition has largely been on developing and testing innovative energy technologies. A necessary condition but certainly not the only condition for this major, societal task to succeed. More and skilled (energy) technical personnel at all educational levels has increasingly become a bottleneck. It is good that this is attracting increasing attention from all sides and the Energie(k) Onderwijs project is happy to contribute to this.
The road to success
The Energie(k) Onderwijs project is pulling out all the stops to prevent the energy transition from stalling due to staff shortages in the energy sector. We do this by:
- Visualising the qualitative and quantitative demand for (energy) technical staff from the market;
- Developing new and better educational programmes tailored to the energy transition;
- Develop retraining programmes for lateral entrants;
- Develop retraining programmes for current staff and teachers;
- Getting pupils, students and lateral entrants excited about a future in the energy transition;
- Promote national and regional cooperation between education, government and industry;
- Create hybrid apprenticeships at educational institutions and companies.
Cooperation across borders.
The challenges we face on both sides of the border are similar. That is why there will be intensive cooperation between these 18 project partners in the south of the Netherlands and Flanders in the coming years:
Avans Hogeschool, Zuyd Hogeschool, Hogeschool Zeeland, Thomas More Hogeschool, Hogeschool Vives, Curio, ROC Da Vinci College, Koning Willem 1 College, ROC ter AA, ROC Tilburg, Scalda, Summa College, Katholiek Onderwijs Vlaanderen, Mtech+, Province of Antwerp, RTC Oost Vlaanderen, Flemish Energy and Climate Agency (VEKA) and Wij-Techniek (also on behalf of Techniek Nederland).
Because only through cross-border cooperation we will get a smarter and greener Europe!
Want more information about this project? Then send an e-mail to energiekonderwijs@avans.nl.
