The Opening Event of the “Increasing the Quality of Vocational education and training through Establishment of Sectoral Centres of Excellence” (IQVET III) project, which started to be implemented on March 1, 2021, within the scope of the European Union Pre-Accession Financial Assistance Instrument for the period of 2014-2020, was held on October 28, 2021 in Ankara.

Sadri Şensoy, Deputy Minister of National Education, Angel Gutierrez Hidalgo De Quintana, Head of Economic and Social Development Section within the EU Delegation to Turkey, and Nurettin Özdebir, President of Ankara Chamber of Industry, attended to the opening event of the project, which is co-funded by the Republic of Turkey and the European Union, whose program authority and contract manager is the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and beneficiary is the Ministry of National Education.Deputy Minister Şensoy, who participated in the opening program of the project, which started with the slogan, “Lend a hand to the future, shape the future”, emphasized that vocational high schools add strength to the Turkish economy and said, “In 2020, the income obtained from production in vocational high schools reached 503 million 197 thousand 847 liras, with an increase of 100 percent in the last two years. We now produce the workshop experiment sets we use in vocational education and the tools needed in design skill workshops in our vocational high schools. Another important development in this field has been achieved in the field of intellectual property. Thanks to the 50 R&D centres we have established in schools providing vocational education and training, our students and teachers can design new products and obtain registration within the scope of intellectual property of those products. While the number of registered products in vocational education and training was only 2.9 in the last 10 years, we have registered 188 patents, utility models, brands and designs in 2020. In other words, from 2.9 to 188, an increase of approximately 60 times was achieved. Our efforts and determination in this matter will continue to increase day by day, and the valuable knowledge and experience we have gained during the project will shed light on the steps to be taken and the projects and activities to be carried out.”

IQVET III Project
The main purpose of the project, which is implemented under the consultancy of the consortium established by the GFA Consulting Group from Germany, the National Vocational Education and Training Development Centre from Romania and ANKON Consulting from Turkey, is to invest in human capital by increasing the quality of vocational education and training. The objectives of the project are to develop knowledge, skills and competences in line with the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework and the European Quality Assurance Framework in vocational education and training, improving learning environments, making vocational education and training a more attractive option for students, increase the quality of vocational education and training by increasing the cooperation between the private sector, schools, social partners through establishment of Sectoral Excellence Centres.

A series of activities will be carried out in line with the aims and objectives of the Project, which will be implemented in a total of 25 pilot provinces including İstanbul, Kocaeli, Bursa, Denizli, Antalya, İzmir, Adana, Sivas, Konya, Eskişehir, Trabzon, Hatay, Kahramanmaraş, Erzincan, Samsun, Tekirdağ, Kayseri, Afyonkarahisar, Gaziantep, Manisa, Çanakkale, Kırşehir, Zonguldak, Malatya and Ankara. The majority of these activities aim to improve the institutional capacity of the General Directorate of Vocational Education and Training of the Ministry of National Education and to increase the quality of the personnel and services of the General Directorate.

On-the-job training for 3,000 teachers
The project, which has an overall budget of approximately 22 million Euros, will have technical assistance, grant program and equipment procurement phases. With the project, 3,000 teachers in 25 fields will receive on-the-job training. 15 sectoral excellence centres will be established for the development of special field competencies of teachers working in vocational and technical secondary education institutions with on-the-job learning and distance learning methods.

In this context, 14 of the 15 centres will operate in 25 vocational fields, and one in vocational foreign language and mathematics and science for vocational education.

National and international training for the employees of the sectoral centres of excellence
Employees of the sectoral centres of excellence will be trained in the country and abroad within the scope of the project. The centres will establish the link between vocational education and training and the sector, and will implement mechanisms that will ensure the continuous professional development of teachers and increase the adaptation of teachers to the developments in the sector.