OREANDA-NEWS. The Skills Passport project, launched by SCM Group back in 2011, presented its results Kiev on 18 September. The initiative includes eight occupational standards in steel sector, energy and journalism developed by industry-focused working teams and experts as well as educational standards of the Ministry of Education and Science and pilot curricula. Starting from 1 September, 23 universities and academies in 9 Ukrainian regions willing to join Skills Passport have applied the new standards.

“The project has delivered first results. Obviously, we can talk about complete success at least after the first year of training to these curricula and after students' first industrial placement. But I believe we have passed the hardest part of the way as we established a productive dialogue between the labour market and the professional education system. That would be impossible without the people united behind of idea to develop educational standards for future specialists in key industries of steelmaking, energy and journalism. I mean the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, the Confederation of Employers, representatives of pilot industries and schools - over 100 people working during two years. I wish to thank every one of them for the contribution to the project and involvement,” said Natalya Yemchenko, SCM's Director of Public Relations and Communications. “We hope the new curricular will give thousands of students the knowledge and skills enabling them to find a good job with a good salary and build a career. I also hope that young specialists will move knowingly and eagerly from classrooms to factories, coal mines, power plants and editorial offices.”

Yemchenko added that the project was the first initiative where the Ministry of Education and Science and employers went the whole way from the kickoff meeting to introduction of curricula in universities. Officials of the Ministry took part in all meetings and discussions of the working groups, the approach that helped employers to be heard by educators. In turn, the Confederation of Employers helped to bring together the efforts of employers and make the standards appropriate for industries.

Along with the occupational and educational standards and pilot curricula at 23 universities, the project set a roadmap that employers in other sectors can follow to develop own requirements to specialists. Steel Sector Skills Council emerged from the actions taken to develop occupational standards. The council will update the current standards every two or three years and develop new ones for the steel industry.

“I am positive about cooperation of the Ministry of Education of Science with employers, especially such big ones, as SCM Group. Our cooperation has delivered results. Skills Passport is a modern and innovative project. Over the past several years it has been the first case when employers got actually involved in developing occupational standards. Just like Edison invented the electric light bulb used today by the whole world, all Ukrainian universities can use the occupational standards,” said Dmytro Tabachnyk, Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine.

“Skills Passport is a very important initiative of SCM Group, one of fundamental employers in Ukraine. Why do we think the project is important? Production industry has technology patterns. With SCM we are creating the fifth and sixth technology patterns. We move from simple requirements to employees towards an occupational competence-based standard,” said Aleksey Miroshnichenko, Executive Vice President, Confederation of Employers of Ukraine.

Skills passports were given to students and faculty of the National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine (Dnepropetrovsk,

9 September), Priazovskiy State Technical University (Mariupol, 10 September), Journalism Institute of Kiev Taras Shevchenko National University (Kiev, 11 September) and Donetsk National Technical University (Donetsk, 12 September).

Skills Passport profile

SCM Group initiated the development of modern occupational standards, the skills passports, in 2011. Throughout 2011-2012 the project developed standards in steel sector, energy and journalism for the following jobs:

Converter engineer

Converter supervisor

Converter steel founder

Steel founder assistant

Electrical engineer in power generation

Electrical engineer in mining

Multimedia editor

Multimedia journalist.

The Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine took the skills passports and in 2012-2013 developed new educational standards as the basis for curricula in pilot universities. Altogether, 23 schools joined the project at various stages.

National Technical University “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute”

National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy

National Metallurgical Academy of Ukraine

Lviv Ivan Franko National University

National Mining University

Donetsk National Technical University

Sevastopol National University of Nuclear Energy and Industry

Priazovskiy State Technical University

Zaporozhye National University

Tavricheskiy Vladimir Vernadskiy National University

Vinnitsa State Technical University

Mariupol State University

Ukrainian Catholic University

Dnepropetrovsk Oles Gonchar National University

Zaporozhye State Academy of Engineering

Dneprodzerzhinsk State Technical University

Lugansk Taras Shevchenko National University

Kiev Taras Shevchenko National University

Sumy State University

National Technical University “Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute”

Kharkov Vasiliy Karazin National University

Cherkassy Bogdan Khmelnitskiy National University

Chernovtsy Yuri Fedkovich National University.

Being a part of SCM Group's Contemporary Education programme, Skills Passport also involved British Council, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Confederation of Employers of Ukraine and BEST think tank.

Kommentarii weekly was the media partner.