Revolution and Technology in Spain’s Vocational Training (FP)

How can educational centers manage hundreds of software licenses? Is there a way to streamline management and reduce costs? How are cloud services helping to optimize processes?

EDT Director & Partner EMEA & LATAM, Ana Isabel Calvo, weighs in on the future of Spain’s Vocational Training centers (FP).

The approval of the new Organic Law for the Organization and Integration of Vocational Training in Spain in April 2022, with a budget of 5,474 million euros, allows us to foresee a period full of hope and opportunities in Vocational Training for the 2022/23 academic year complete with funding for the next four years.

The objective of this global transformation of Vocational Training is to turn it into a singular system of quality in an environment that provides talent, reduces youth unemployment rates and strengthens productivity. In short, the law is a bet on boosting Spain’s economic development in the short to medium term. Since its approval the stakeholders involved, companies and educational centers, have cooperated to focus on addressing the new academic plans and their alignment with each sector. In this new framework, technology and software are necessary and essential allies to enter the professional and experimental framework. The technology-software pairing makes it possible to identify useful competencies and skills to gain productivity, competitiveness and facilitate the understanding and experimentation of the learning process. Simulators, or virtual laboratories are successful examples that are particularly relevant in the case of higher education, where software plays a major formative role. On the other hand, technology also encourages overcoming training limits in Vocational Training, thanks to remote learning environments.

The implementation of new software solutions in Vocational Training is directly linked to the development of courses that train tech profiles. According to a report by the consulting firm Gartner about the shortage of talent and profiles suited to the demand of the labor market, in 2020 digital businesses represented 41% of the world economy compared to 22% in 2015. And according to several sources, it could rise to 53% in 2023. Progress, therefore, is occurring in parallel: companies are using digital tools to maximize productivity, while their use and instruction are being included in training courses. The productive fabric itself demands technology in Vocational Training (FP).

In this exciting new educational context, the difficulty lies in getting digital tools to all teachers and students while being aware of the effort and costs for both educational institutions and companies. Most Vocational Training (FP) technical departments are too small to perform the immense operational and executive work required for the implementation of software licensing. The problems range from simple management of software purchases to the development of 100% virtual desktops, including the management of teacher-student licensing, versioning, security tools, program execution support, multi-language technical support, remote desktop management and numerous other tasks.

On another side of the institutions, there are the educational center managers, whose objective is to control and optimize all digital resources, focused on keeping costs low, as well as improving the user experience and the management of IT equipment.

A solution takes shape with the development of cloud technology, popularly known as the cloud, which includes licensing management software programs, an essential ally to optimize and generate better service with a more satisfactory and personalized user experience. In addition, it allows for the necessary data for proper management and saves on the high costs involved in the dozens of software programs required by Vocational Training (FP).

In this sense, it’s pure digitization and the institutions involved, both educational and business, have the opportunity to receive grants to boost the implementation of cloud technology. For example:

• If you are a company that is associated with training, you can find significant support with the “Digital Kit Program”. This initiative, endowed with more than 3,000 million euros from the European Next Generation EU fund, is within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR). It offers grants of between 2,000 and 12,000 euros for any SME to implement applications and software to improve their training production processes.
• If you are an educational institution, for Vocational Training there are different types of aid, all of them also included in the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR). For example, for innovation and internationalization, the approved budget is €599 million. On the other hand, for digital transformation, the budget is €2,56.1 million and for the implementation of digital classrooms, there is an allocation of €9 million for rural municipalities for the next four years. In other words, it is a much broader framework, where the institution can choose according to its objectives and needs.

Therefore, the path of digitization begins with institutions and positively impacts their training processes and optimization of resources. Society demands digitization and in view of the difficulties encountered by companies and educational institutions, cloud services have been developed. Additionally, government grants have been approved to speed up and reduce the cost of implementing this technology.