South Baltic Training Programme (SBTP)
We are heading towards a generation change that will cause labour shortage. According to the Swedish Public Employment Service, ca. 1,6 million people will retire prior to the year 2025. In Germany and Lithuania the trends are the same and many youths are moving out of the region to work elsewhere.
Companies with production sites in several South Baltic countries, involved in cross-border cooperation, operations and trade, have an increasing demand for qualified labour force, educated and trained with an additional international component, especially from the South Baltic Region.
The desired mobility, cultural and international awareness is also hindered by the fact that the existing vocational training system traditionally tends to focus only on the local market. Many vocational graduates lack the tradition of working outside their local market. When the labour market expands and becomes international, the requirements on education change. Increased language skills, knowledge about other countries and regions, their corporate culture and history, mobility and comparable Vocational educational training (VET) systems are required.
This project aims to address these challenges by matching participants with employers, across borders, in the SB area. The aim of SBTP is to support internationalisation and cross-border cooperation between VET providers, the business sector and VET students in order to develop the SB labour force with skilled young people, competent in international business culture and to increase their mobility between countries in the SB region.
The objectives of the SBTP project are:
A) Support internationalisation of the post secondary VET education and the cross-border entrepreneurship between countries in the SB area.
B) Develop and implement the educational testing model where VET-students get the possibility to get a cross-border education and carry out an internship within the SB area.
C) Identify the problems that constitute bottlenecks for the internationalisation of VET-education and cross-border entrepreneurship cooperation.
D) Out of the project experience, create recommendations for stakeholders (VETs, the business sector, authorities and politicians) for the further development of these issues.
E) Create a platform where the target groups can continue the cooperation for further development, exchange of experience and networking for further development after the project.
