Creating a study for investigating SME needs & VET educators’ skills in the Green Economy field

The process …

The study of the current situation in the Green Economy field was made as part of IO3 Didactic material production for Green economy pilot training.

The goal we set was to analyze the current situation in the Green Economy field exploring market needs, in particular SMEs needs and ongoing curricula related to Green Economy. In order to equip the VET educators with the necessary tools and approaches on how to transform the training paths and orient them towards Green Economy.

So, working on the elaboration of the survey our understanding was that we should provide two separate questionnaires addressing the two target groups:

–    from one side we should ask SMEs about their needs;

–   from the other side we should collect information regarding the curricula existing and ask VET educators.

We developed the two questionnaires as a follow-up of the study conducted in IO1, using the same concepts and terminology. We designed more open questions for VET educators, expecting that based on their profile and typology they would be more willing to share more information and experience while for the SMES we opted for closed questions taking into account the hectic business day. Each partner country disseminated the questionnaires among 30 participants from the identified target groups.

The results …

Given the diversity of partners and the different context – political and economic, as well as the variety of sectors each partner focuses on (agriculture, manufacturing, construction, transport etc.) the results are quite specific and individual. However, there are few common conclusions that could be made.

1)     In each country there is a strong need of educated and well-prepared “green” staff;

2)     There is a lack of knowledge on legislation and practical implementation of the existing EU requirements;

3)     Despite the fact that there is a lot of information and educational materials on the “green” and “circular” economy, there is still a needed to create more awareness on these topics;

4)     Waste management, recycling, and reuse of materials are also identified as business needs.