This week, CaixaBank Dualiza celebrates the eighth anniversary of its founding and has taken stock of the activities carried out since it began in July 2016.
Through the activities developed by CaixaBank Dualiza for the promotion and development of Vocational Training, a total of 42,037 students have benefited, 5,634 companies have participated and 3,641 activities have been carried out with Vocational Training centres.
All of them have participated in some of the Foundation's lines of activity, which include the promotion and boosting of vocational training, research and guidance in this educational medium.
The Foundation’s Chairman, José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, highlighted the positive evolution of Vocational Training over the years, as evidenced by its increased weight in our education system, being chosen by one in three students in post-compulsory education. However, he did say that, although these results fill us with satisfaction, "the promotion and improvement of Vocational Training continue to be fundamental tasks for our society due to its contribution to the improvement of employability, by bringing training closer to businesses’ needs, and doing so in a flexible, fast and efficient manner".
Furthermore, he insisted that "the employability of citizens is key to a country's development, the main factor in social cohesion and the best way to combat inequality".
Within this context, the director of CaixaBank Dualiza, Paula San Luis, reaffirmed "the bank's commitment to promoting vocational training as a key tool to train workers so they can join the labour market or to update the skills of many of those who are already working".
The commitment is essential to continue promoting a training method that "will be key over the next decade, from 2025 to 2035, in which, according to the Vocational Training Observatory, more than three million employment opportunities linked to vocational training will be generated".
The establishment of alliances and collaborations to try to multiply the actions, as well as the beneficiaries of these actions, has remained an essential part of the activity of CaixaBank Dualiza, which now has more than 200 collaborators between the public administration, social entities and business groups.
These activities are aimed at increasing society's skills and thus its employability.
Among them, the Dualiza Call for Applications stands out, which this year celebrated its 7th edition.
Since its launch, this Call for Applications has enabled the promotion of more than 240 Vocational Training Centre projects presented by companies, which assume a training role in the initiative, in order to improve student learning.
Since the launch of the Dualiza Call for Applications, schools from all of Spain’s autonomous communities have been represented, and many of the projects have been implemented after they have been completed.
In parallel, CaixaBank Dualiza has promoted its other call, Active Orientation, to support initiatives aimed at attracting young people to vocational training.
With the same objective of continuing to raise the visibility of Vocational Training, workshops for guidance counsellors have been promoted with more than 2,000 professionals having joined.
Furthermore, initiatives to improve the professional qualification and updating of teachers' knowledge have continued to be one of the main lines of action, through workshops, seminars and free online courses, such as the one to better understand the new aspects of sustainability that the new Vocational Training law will bring, which was attended by more than 2,000 teachers.
To facilitate the assimilation of these new regulations, CaixaBank Dualiza has produced audiovisual materials and downloadable presentations, as well as compiled the main opinions on the law.
Companies have remained a fundamental pillar of CaixaBank Dualiza's activity, being an essential part of Vocational Training and acquiring an even more important role in this new Vocational Training law that reinforces their role as trainers.
In order to help in the development of these training tasks, CaixaBank Dualiza has prepared sectoral guides for welcoming students and has organised meetings and breakfasts where companies and educational centres have been able to meet for the first time, learn about the reality of the labour market in the area where they are located, and work on promoting joint projects that contribute to the training of students and the talent of tomorrow.
Many of these initiatives have been undertaken using the data compiled in the various research projects conducted by the CaixaBank Dualiza Knowledge and Innovation Centre. The goal of the Centre is precisely to provide solid data to facilitate decision-making through a thorough understanding of the vocational training system and the needs of the labour market.
It is precisely thanks to the annual Vocational Training and Training report that we know that in the next decade, from 2025 to 2035, our market will generate more than three million job opportunities for Vocational Training graduates.
But, in addition, this Knowledge and Innovation Centre has carried out the first research on Vocational Training and Training dropout in Spain, based on data from the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, and subjected to contrast groups with professionals.
This data has made it possible to follow the performance over four years of the students enrolled in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 academic years in order to have data on their performance until 2022, and to conclude that the drop-out rate after four years reaches 40% in the Basic Level, 30% in the Intermediate Level and almost 20% in the Higher Level.
All this data is published in the Vocational Training Observatory, a cornerstone of the Centre’s activity, where all the figures for the Initial Vocational Training system, Dual Vocational Training and Vocational Training for employment are grouped together, sorted by Autonomous Community and by year, so users can make their own assessment of the evolution of vocational training in one area compared to another, or over time.
CaixaBank Dualiza
CaixaBank Dualiza represents the commitment of the CaixaBank Dual Training Foundation to fostering and disseminating vocational training, as well as the fundamental role that this type of training will play in the future of society.
It is only through more training that we can achieve a more inclusive society with fewer inequalities.
To achieve this, CaixaBank Dualiza provides support for the demands of teachers and educational centres and works with companies to train future professionals and enhance their employability.
Since its launch, all its activities have benefited 42,037 students, 5,634 companies and 3,641 educational centre activities.
