Improving skills in new water efficient technologies is the focus of a pan-European project that sees SummitSkills contributing its expertise in skills training and qualifications.
The AquaVET project involves organisations from Greece, Netherlands and Spain, along with SummitSkills representing the UK, to look at how vocational education can fully embrace new technologies linked to water harvesting and recycling, to ensure learners have access to common and consistent training and materials.
Over the last six months, SummitSkills has been conducting research into the existing training provision in this area in the UK, identifying commonality and differences between the UK and the other countries and looking at where gaps need to be addressed. Based on this work, SummitSkills has now created a set of learning outcomes and units, which set out what a learner should ultimately gain from their training.
Partners from the Netherlands are now creating learning materials based on SummitSkills’ recommendations. Water harvesting and greywater re-use training materials previously developed by SummitSkills have also been submitted to aid the project development.
The overall aim of AquaVET is to develop a water efficiency technologies curriculum that introduces a new skill set for water technicians and also addresses the fragmented nature of existing training solutions across Europe. The resulting curriculum will combine ‘hard skills’ supporting the technical and digital technology needs, and ‘soft skills’ covering environmental, customer service and decision making issues.
“The UK’s apprenticeship and vocational training structure is well-respected across Europe and we’re happy to contribute to the development of a quality, consistent framework for water efficiency skills,” said Nigel Hollett, General Manager of SummitSkills. “The efficient use of water and the energy savings that can be gained in this respect is becoming increasingly important, so it’s fantastic to see pan-European countries working together in this way to address skills issues.”
For more information on AquaVET please contact Kevin Dowd, Programme Manager at [email protected].
