Cooperation between Schools and Enterprise as a Basis for

STYLE Cooperation between Schools and Enterprise as a Basis for Innovation The Government of the Moravian-Silesian Region implements projects aimed at the development of professional training and education in the sciences, including vocational training targeted at job skills. This is why current investment projects plan to improve the practical training of students at technical schools with education and practice centered on these particular schools. Modern education at technical schools and their cooperation with enterprise is the prerequisite to development and innovation in addition to establishing collaboration within companies. These are the principal topics of our interview with the Deputy Governor, Mgr. Stanislav Folwarczny. Mr Folwarczny, the government of our region is supplying secondary schools with modern teaching equipment. What is the aim of these investments? We want to supply secondary schools with the latest equipment corresponding with current findings and development in each industry, and what is being used in production. It is obvious that secondary school equipment will always be a few steps behind innovative leaders in their fields of enterprise. However, our aim is to narrow that gap as much as possible. Does the regional government cooperate with secondary schools and businesses to coordinate the teaching with the actual needs of the enterprise? Of course. Nowadays, each governmentfunded technical secondary school has dozens of partner companies from large industrial enterprise and international corporations to small businesses and freelancers. One of the key points of the cooperation of schools and businesses is to continually keep the syllabus topical so that it corresponds with modern trends. The professional technical equipment and education are upgraded and modernised as well as pedagogical methodology, the teachers too must respond to cutting-edge technologies and adapt their teaching and instruction accordingly. Selected schools in the Moravian-Silesian Region are also engaged in the pilot testing of elements of dual education which aims at even more intensive collaboration of schools and businesses in professional training. Our experience so far proves that it is the right direction, and this is how the collaboration of schools and companies may improve because both parties share the same interest, i.e. preparing qualified, skilled and professionally trained graduates to join the company or business. We would like to introduce technical and engineering schools whose expertise and innovative instruction guarantee preparation of a well-qualified staff. Which schools would you mention, and what are their best results? The regional government, as the founder of state-governed secondary schools, supports all secondary schools equally. Yet some schools tend to become the natural centres of education in their districts, especially those which have an agile management and teachers. A good representative is the Polytechnical Secondary School in Bruntál, the first in the region to create an in-school VR lab, where students are taught and teachers develop the contents of the syllabus and create digital teaching aids. In response to the success of the virtual laboratory in the Polytechnical Secondary School in Bruntál, we are creating such laboratories in six more secondary schools in the region. Other schools are being equipped with collaborative robots, modernizing mechatronic classrooms, electrolabs and laboratories of technical testing and measuring. In the past two years alone, we have invested about 150 million Czech crowns in the modernization of expert equipment in secondary schools, and we intend to continue with these investments because the support of professional education and crafts is the top priority in the Moravian-Silesian Region. Thank you for the interview. - editorial - Text: redakce Foto: MSK www.MSK.cz POSITIV 3/2019 ǀ 87