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At a time when youth unemployment, ageing-workforce and skills shortage become some of the major challenges facing the Textile, Clothing, Leather, and Footwear (TCLF) sectors in many European countries, 21 private and public stakeholders from 9 different countries gathered together in an ambitious four-year project titled “Skills4Smart TCLF Industries 2030”, funded by the Erasmus+ programme. The upskilling and reskilling of TCLF workforce of 2 million people in the European Union. through innovative learning methods to better match companies’ needs, the improvement of the image of careers in these manufacturing sectors, and the creation of a robust and sustainable community of private and public actors across Europe committed to support skills development and employment opportunities are quoted as main objectives of this far-reaching project.

On 19-20 June 2018, project partners participated in the Technical Meeting of the “Skills4Smart TCLF 2030” at INESCOP premises in sunny Elda (Alicante, Spain). Coordinated by the European umbrella organisation EURATEX (Textile and Clothing) together with its two counterparts COTANCE (Leather) and CEC (Footwear) they talked through various work packages of this long-term project, including research, training courses, dissemination of the results and evaluation of the activities.

However, the focus of this two-day meeting was mainly on ongoing activities. Blueprint partners are currently identifying the main education providers of the TCLF sectors across Europe through an online registration template (https://s4tclfblueprint.eu/register) and mapping the most relevant existing TCLF educational projects at European, national and regional level. At the same time, they are involving TCLF SMEs and large companies, where they will organise interviews and focus groups with the aims at measuring industrial needs. All these first activities will allow the Consortium to analyse and assess the current training offer, to identify new occupations and their skill-set and to involve new VET stakeholders in the projects activities.

With the very fast changes in our society and industry thanks to digitalisation and new technologies, VET centres indeed represent the cornerstone of a skilled workforce. However, in order to succeed, they need to be equipped with innovative material and learning methods, be able to engage the knowledgeable young learners, and at the same time respond rapidly to companies’ needs. A network of VET centres of excellence across Europe, keen on cooperating and working on the update of curricula and programme offers accompanied by a quality assurance plan granting the merited recognition of diplomas, will guarantee a skilled and talented workforce for the future TCLF industries.

This project outcome falls within the overall TCLF Skills Strategy to anticipate skills needs and deliver innovative education that partners will deliver within the project. Other outcomes include a new sectoral identity and communication campaign to attract and retain young people to replace the ageing workforce, and the development of 8 new transnational VET profiles and respective curricula and training programmes to address new companies’ needs in a TCLF sector which represents a combined annual turnover of over € 200 billion in the EU.

 

For more information about the project:

 

Project Details:

 

Project Title: Skills4Smart TCLF Industries 2030

Project Reference: 591986-EPP-1-2017-1-BE-EPPKA2-SSA-B

Programme: ERASMUS + (Sector Skills Alliances for implementing a new strategic approach to sectoral cooperation on skills (“Blueprint”)

Project duration:

01st January 2018 – 31st December 2021

 

Project Partners:

  1. EURATEX, Belgium – Textiles & Clothing, Project coordinator
  2. CEC, Belgium – Footwear
  3. COTANCE, Belgium – Leather
  4. CIAPE- Centro Italiano per l’Apprendimento Permanente, Italy
  5. CITEVE- Centro Tecnológico das Indústrias Têxtil e do Vestuário de Portugal, Portugal
  6. CNDIPT- Centrul National de Dezvoltare a Invatamantului Profesional si Tehnic, Romania
  7. COBOT, Belgium
  8. CTCP, Centro Tecnológico do Calçado de Portugal, Portugal
  9. HMA – Hellenic Management Association, Greece
  10. FUNDAE – Fundación Estatal para la Formación en el Empleo, Spain
  11. IVOC, Belgium
  12. INESCOP- Instituto Tecnologico del Calzado y Conexas, Spain
  13. OPCALIA, France
  14. PIN – Soc. Cons. A r.l. – Servizi didattici e scientifici per l’Università di Firenze, Italy
  15. Politecnico Calzaturiero, Italy
  16. SPIN360, Italy
  17. TUIASI- Universitatea Tehnica Gheorghe Asachi din Iasi, Romania
  18. Lodz University of Technology, Poland
  19. UPC- Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
  20. PIRIN-TEX EOOD, Bulgaria
  21. Marzotto, Italy