SILVAforum

Vocational training in forestry is characterized by a vast amount of challenges. These are due to many factors, starting from the multitude of topics associated to forestry, ranging from the regional specifications, the outdoor based training, the economic and ecological impact, the rapid evolution in forestry techniques and science, to the increasing need for wood as a renewable resource. Through transnational cooperation, forestry schools, teachers and students try to keep themselves up-to-date, learn from each other and put their resources in common in order to improve their quality of training. Thus this project, called SILVAforum, defines several aims to meet these expectations: - Comparison of forestry and forestry training in different countries - Knowledge transfer between partners - Sharing and creation of educational material (video-tutorials, dictionaries...) - Elaboration of ECVET units The partners are VET schools (or associations of schools) of the green sector from Austria, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Romania and Sweden. Every partner defines his field of excellence. This is a forestry topic, technique or know how where the partner organization excels not only by their knowledge, but also by the means to teach the related competencies. For every field of excellence there are 4 actions: 1. Workshop for multipliers 2. Workshop for students 3. Publication of related open source training material 4. Elaboration of an ECVET unit The workshops will last at least a week. The workshop for multipliers (mostly teachers) will be open for every partner. All the participant partners will not only attend the workshop in order to learn its content, but will participate actively if possible to compare the teaching of this topic in his country/school. Video tutorials, interactive learning material will be done by the hosting partner, but translations and additional training resources will be made available by the other participants. During this workshop there will be discussions how to make an ECVET unit about this topic and a group of three people at least will be in charge to elaborate this. A second workshop will be held afterwards, this time aimed for students of the partner organisations, which will focus on the training aspect, but also spare some time for cultural aspects and international exchange. Of course it will use the previously elaborated training resources in preparation of the workshop or during this latter. All the elaborated resources will be made permanently available through the EUROPEA homepage (www.europea.org). In addition to these workshops, there will be the biannual meetings of the steering group. Due to the increased contact of the partner schools, student exchange and work placements will be promoted and made easier. Many participants take regularly part in forestry skills competitions, partners will be invited to compete as well. Partners will notify each other if some interesting activities (like seminars, excursions, workshops...), which are not part of the project, take place and are invited to participate if possible. It is expected that this cooperation will last, even after the project end. Resulting ECVET units, some of the workshops can be organised for interested groups after the end of the project.