In recent years, vocational training (FP) in Spain has been made up of two subsystems aimed at different groups, unrelated to each other and generating limitations in professional qualification and requalification in Spain.
These two sub-systems are:
- La formación profesional reglada o inicial, which depends on the Ministry of Education and the Autonomous Communities.
- La formación para el empleo, linked to the Ministry of Employment and Social Security and the Autonomous Communities.
However, in order to improve the capacity to respond to the needs of the labor market, permanent mechanisms for cooperation and communication between the business world and educational centers must be put in place.
Faced with the need to create a single system that offers citizens of any age and in any condition, in June of this year the Ministry of Education presented the preliminary draft of the future Organic Law for the Organization and Integration of Vocational Training (FP), which seeks to respond to this approach by promoting a continuous relationship between companies and educational centers, boosting the autonomy of the centers and strengthening their relationship with companies.
Thus, it is expected that by the end of this year this preliminary draft for a new model of Vocational Training will have been approved, so as to achieve a system capable of responding flexibly to the skills demanded by the labor market, both to increase productivity and to generate and maintain employment.
This Organic Law for the Organization and Integration of Vocational Training (FP) represents a radical leap with respect to the previous regulation. Among the significant changes it includes are the following:
- 50% of job opportunities in the second half of this decade will be reserved for people with intermediate qualifications, and only 16% of jobs will require a low level of qualification.
- Increase the percentage of students choosing vocational education and training. Currently, the rate of enrollment in vocational training is significantly lower than that of OECD countries and the EU itself.
- Increase the number of vocational training places and adjust the supply to the needs of the labor market.
- Develop a framework for Dual Vocational Training (FPD) and expand the presence of the company in training. All vocational training (FP) will be dual, in such a way that both the educational center and the company take co-responsibility for the apprentice’s training.
- Increase the number of hours of training that workers and job seekers do in order to be on a par with the most advanced countries.
- To develop a flexible, accessible, accumulable, accreditable and capitalizable Lifelong Vocational Training system, with a permanent accompaniment of professional guidance.
- Incorporate innovation, entrepreneurship, digitalization and sustainability in an updated, attractive and flexible training offer, which responds to the training needs of citizens and companies.