The third module of the online educational programme for management teams of the WorldSkills member countries has been completed

As part of the third module, teams from the UK, Ghana, India, Costa Rica, Namibia, Poland, Romania, and Russia continued working on their projects. Among the projects that teams from different countries are working on is the atlas of green professions of the future, Future Skills Team Challenge, Junior Skills, skills for employment, virtual Skills Labs, the introduction of WorldSkills standards into the training system, a strategy for involving teachers in the WorldSkills movement, improvement of professionalism in the expert community.

The third module is the midpoint of the educational programme. As for the module, Ekaterina Loshkareva, Programme Director, WorldSkills Russia Deputy Director General for Research and Development in Education, WorldSkills International Board Member, said that the main objective of the module is to change the way of thinking while working on the project and designing an ideal model for its implementation: “It was important for us to link the values, principles and organizational design of projects with practical tools and techniques, as well as with the image of the end-user, elaborated on by teams during the second module.”

Traditionally, the project work of the teams included educational and simulation tracks. The key speaker of the programme was Sébastien Turbot, CEO and co-founder of a Canada-based consulting company eko6, which works with national and local authorities, businesses, and communities, the leader of the WISE Learning Ecosystems Living Lab. Following up on the module’s main topic, he presented educational ecosystems as a pattern and shared cases of existing ecosystems in different countries with the teams. He continued the speech of Olivier Brechard, Director Learning Planet Festival, about the importance of building effective partnerships, presented in the second module. 

Also, as part of the educational track, the teams took part in a workshop by Dmitry Moroz, CEO of the Futura by red_mad_robot design studio. He presented an approach to design a strategy for bringing a new digital product to the market, and then he analyzed one of the projects of the Future Skills Team Challenge by WorldSkills Russia, prepared by Konstantin Kaisin, Head of Innovation Projects of the WorldSkills Russia Research and Development Department. 

Within the simulation, the teams pitched projects to each other and invited experts, among whom were: Mike Dave, an independent consultant in the field of educational policies and skills development systems from the UK; Máximo Plo, a researcher in the field of vocational education systems, Director of Operations for Europe, Diversity Atlas by Cultural Infusion; Anton Stepanenko, a partner at BCG. The participants not only presented their projects but also gave each other feedback based on either being a defender or a critic of the project. The invited experts highly appreciated the projects presented by the teams, and also noted their significance and potential applicability not only within the framework of the national training system but also as alienated practices that can be applied in different countries. 

The Body&Mind track of the programme was presented by Yogis Without Borders. 

The teams are awaiting two more modules of the programme, where project implementation plans and their resource support, as well as promotion strategies, will be elaborated. In October, they will present their projects to the international WorldSkills community.