Name: Eckert Hebel, Michael Salner
Organization: OSZ IMT Berlin, Germany
Date: Tuesday, 14-04-15
- Activities description
Visit employers (at Luznar and Lotric),
See http://www.luznar.com/luznar_en.html and http://lotric.si/en/
- What did I learn from this activity? What insights did this new knowledge give to me in relation to school/organization, learner and employer?
Luznar is a company which produces printed circuit boards (PCBs). It is a family company and the owner and his son are very proud of it. The PCBs are manufactured in several working steps in several rooms. The owner of the company showed us the rooms, where the circuits are printed, the copper lanes are produced, and where the quality control of the boards is located. The company has all the required machines to manufacture the boards.
We thought that those boards could be cheaper produced in Asia, but the advantage of the Slovenian company is the flexibility. They can deliver faster. A prototype can be delivered in 24 hours. The owner proudly showed us the workshops and the expensive machines. One of the machines cost 150.000€.
Lotric is a company that offers measurement and calibration processes and also measuring instruments. Therefore they have certain rooms with instruments to measure pressure, temperature, and length among others. The PR manager showed us the rooms, where the measuring and the calibration processes are done by the workers. Everything has to be clean and exact.
Luznar and Lotric are good examples of the close contact and relationship the school has with companies through the WBL-organizer. Students can learn a lot at those companies. The students go through the departments to learn something about the steps of the production.
At the afternoon we visited an employer who refaced the forefront of a house with several workers together which was another good example of the WBL possibilities students have in Slovenia. The visited student had an individual contract, so that his WBL period was quite long. However, only 4 of the 93 students have individual contracts.
The duration of the practise time can be quite flexible. All the employers meet the WBL-organizer regularly. Also there are working groups with teachers and employers who discuss the 20% of the curriculum. Again it was told that the companies don’t have to pay for the education. The students get money from the state and that is important especially for small companies.
The training of the mentors at the company is obligatory. Only if an employer has a master degree he or she doesn’t have to be trained.
At a later discussion it was said, that the problem in Slovenia is, that there are not enough working places. Teachers should therefore have a spirit of entrepreneurship. They should go to a company for a certain time to update their knowledge. The employers also go to school and present their company and tell the teachers which competences are needed to do the jobs at their company.
- How did I feel about what was presented to me? What did I find innovative? What did I find difficult or challenging to do or understand and why?
From our point of view it is innovative that the state supports small companies a lot. There are individual contracts that can be extended by additional parts and the companies don’t pay for the education.
For us it seems difficult to administrate all those things. However, Slovenia is a small country with a few people. Faster changes are possible. Germany has a greater population. There are more people responsible for the school system. Furthermore every state in Germany has its own school law, which is called federalism. This makes it harder to harmonize things. In Slovenia people are a kind of networkers which might be harder to do in Germany.
Also in Germany fulltime VET students don’t get money for their WBL-time. They have to pay the bus tickets themselves.
- What is working well and could be applied in my organisation and why? How would you go about doing this?
The close relationship between the Slovenian companies we saw and the school worked well. Maybe that’s because Slovenia is a quite new country and the people want to make it well. They have a common interest.
- What definitely would not work in my organisation and why? Any additional comments.
In Germany the companies pay an apprenticeship pay in the Dual System. The more they can pay the student, the better student they can get. A good student can get a better working place and a better WBL. Of course this can only work, when there are enough companies that offer good working places with a good WBL possibility.
