Official website of the Małopolska Region held by the Marshal's Office of the Małopolska Region

The local government of the Małopolska Region has significantly contributed to the development and modernization of the education sector, through comprehensive and complementary activities supporting vocational education, as defined in strategic documents and implemented with the participation of funds available in the 2007-2013 perspective, under the EU programmes for investment in human capital and infrastructure.

The flagship project implemented in 2010-2015 was the "Modernization of vocational education in the Małopolska Region", a project for which PLN 154,000,000 was allocated. Thanks to a partnership with all public vocational schools and 5 non-public bodies, the project was available to every student studying at any vocational school in the Małopolska Region, 77,000 of these students benefited from support by apprenticeships, internships, professional courses and study visits to foreign learning centres. In addition, the cooperation between schools and the economy sector was strengthened, with over 1,000 entrepreneurial educated students from the Małopolska Region took part in internships and apprenticeships.

In addition to the support directly addressed to pupils and students, the project has also enabled the modernization of the didactic base of schools by equipping or retrofitting vocational laboratories with technical and didactic equipment, modernizing and enhancing education in all key areas. At the same time, the Małopolska Region invested in the further development of the vocational education infrastructure, allocating PLN 96 million from the Małopolska Regional Operational Programme.

After implementing the project for 5 years in December 2015, the Małopolska Region largely succeeded in modernizing the vocational education system and building a positive image of a vocational school. This is reflected in the choices of the youth of the Małopolska Region as most decide to continue with an educational guarantee of a specific profession. At the same time, the pass rate of student examinations increased, with the Małopolska Region having higher rates than the national average. It is also common to know how difficult and expensive the process of preparing a young person to function in the modern economy is. This endeavour requires an entire range of competences from an employee, not only those needed by professionals, but also ones that are interpersonal or require language skills. Therefore, at the end of the project, Regional authorities decided to continue the modernization of vocational education within the framework of the current EU financial perspective. Starting from 2017, professional Vocational Competence Centres (CKZ) started to operate in all of the Małopolska sub-regions and have received financial support from the Regional Operational Programme MR for 2014-2020. In total, 45 Vocational Competence Centres will co-create a sub-regional network of centres implementing modern industry education. The centres offer courses and trainings aimed at acquiring additional competences and qualifications sought after in the labour market, both in the case of students and the staff of the branches.

The centres closely cooperate with employers and employers' organizations, with vocational education institutions within a given industry, professional associations and labour offices. Their task is also to prepare the offer of education in non-school forms, consistent with the expectations of employers and universities with regard to the implementation of the professional component of the Małopolska Educational Cloud. The Vocational Competence Centres should specialize in one of the areas of vocational education: administration and service, construction, electro-electronic, mechanical and mining-metallurgy, agriculture and forest with environmental protection, tourism-catering, medical-social.

The centres are run directly by the bodies running upper secondary schools in poviats (counties) and cities of the Małopolska Region. The role of the Region in this process is their substantive support and building a cohesive strategy for the development of vocational education in the Region.

For this purpose, a model for the operation of such facilities was prepared, with particular emphasis on the role of employers in educating staff. Coordinating and supporting the development of vocational education responding to the needs of the economy have been conducted since the beginning of 2016 by the Region as part of the Modernization of Vocational Training in the Małopolska Region II project (MKZM II) which is partnered by the bodies that run the Centres. As part of the MKZM II project, there also exist 2 Vocational Competence Centres functioning on the basis of schools and vocational education institutions run by the Region in the tourism, catering and medical-social sectors. The Region is also responsible for running the professional component of the Małopolska Vocational Cloud project - implementing a new teaching model using modern teaching techniques in the field of ​​7 vocational areas in cooperation with universities, along with its dissemination and training of teachers. By 2021, the effort is planned to support over 2,000 vocational school students and train 400 teachers. At the same time, due to the fact that primary school is a key period for students to make the right educational choice, the Region has prepared a vocational orientation support programme for junior and primary school students. It is based on a pilot study carried out in 2012-2015 and using the Region's own funds - in each of the interested schools (more than 300), school information and career points are created, and each teacher performs the tasks of an adviser and can obtain qualifications as part of their postgraduate studies.