Vocational Education and Training (VET) is considered an essential tool for developing the employability of the workforce of a company or organization, in order to be able to adequately respond to the ever-changing labor market data. VET provides employees with the knowledge, skills and competencies that are considered necessary, both to modernize a company’s production process and to enhance its competitiveness.
Due to the current situation with Covid-19, many organizations have turned to alternative ways of training their employees, as their physical presence in training programs is no longer possible. The need for distance learning vocational education programs is now evident, contributing to the modernization of Cypriot businesses and VET providers by offering them with the opportunity to take advantage of alternative and more flexible forms of education.
Distance education does not require the physical presence of trainees, thus enabling them to participate even in pandemic conditions. In addition, learners who are in remote areas of a seminar site or are unable to attend in person can participate in the learning process through distance learning. Thus, the online seminar becomes much more accessible to more learners. Also, the lower cost of online education compared to lifelong vocational training should be considered positive, because no travel or accommodation expenses are required from the participants. Due to the above, we therefore understand that distance education is proving to be a very flexible form of education.
However, being a relatively recent and evolving form of education, online education is not yet fully widespread. Due to the need to use technological means to be able to achieve, online vocational training gathers distrust and rejection by many, especially by people who are not fully familiar with technology. For this reason, it is considered a priority to acquire digital skills by employees, through their training in digital tools and technologies.
Given the conditions prevailing during a pandemic, CETRI urges Cypriot companies to participate in training programs, through online education, because in this way they will be able to successfully manage the new data. In the same time, CETRI works on an innovative project, DigiVET, that examines the challenges VET providers faced during pandemic. All partners will provide solutions to online VE education, thus through distance vocational training, companies and VET providers will continue to upgrade the knowledge and skills of their staff, improving productivity and enhancing their competitiveness.
If you need to know more, please check our project here and find us on FB @digiVETcommunity.