The German partner has carried out the Women Can Build course in which the trainees have planned and managed the construction of a house, from bid processing to handing over the keys.
In the week of the 20th January nine female secondary school students aged from 17-18 participated in a one-week project workshop during the phase of career orientation at the Vocational Education and Training Centre BZB in Germany. In the project workshop, the students slipped into the role of a construction manager and were given the task of building a house for a customer and his family. The house should be built ecologically responsible and sustainable from wood. With this idea, the students planned the house using software. The finished model house was printed out with a 3D printer and then presented to the customer. In the end, it was built as a walk-in “micro house”.
The aim of the workshop was to raise the awareness of female secondary school students towards the wide range of professions in the construction industry as well as fields of work such as document management, health and safety, calculations, time management and contact to customers which are often not primarily associated with the occupations in construction.
The workshop was a great success for the VET centre, the trainers and the high school students in professional orientation. They understood that there are many interesting career paths in the construction industry. The participants could complete many tasks within a secure environment where they could explore and make mistakes safely. The workshop in the training centre made the occupations in construction approachable and created a point of contact between the target group and the VET centre.
The participants rated the practical aspects and tasks of the workshop, the supervision of the trainers, the place of learning and the information that they received about vocational education positively and wished for more time in working on planning activities.
Almost all participants agreed on the statement that they are able to understand the technical and planning tasks in small and medium sized companies in the construction sector. Half of them said that their interest for realizing those tasks has risen. Some of the participants wished for more information about careers starting with vocational education and followed by further training.