The final meeting of the Cerasmus+ project was held on 21-22 november 2019 in Spain, hosted by EASCM (ceramic school of Manises), a hundred years old institution born to provide competences to the workers of the ceramic industry and evolved to a high school of fine arts.

Cerasmus+ is a european project co-funded by the program Erasmus+, which was born from the initiative of AEuCC – European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation “Cities of Ceramics” and has started in 2017 with the goals to protect the European traditional heritage, to modernize the ceramic sector and to develop vocational training in ceramic craft industry enhancing work based learning models.

Cerasmus+ faces the challenges of global competition, loss of skills, difficulties of getting into the market and lack of financial resources and economic capacity, relying on three pillars: Heritage, Innovation and Network.

The first step of the project was to elaborate and spread a questionnaire for the ceramic stakeholders, to assess the needs of the ceramics sector. This step led to the Transnational report on the training needs in ceramic sector (available online – https://bit.ly/2yI99p3).

According to the survey, the most valued skills are “Artistic and Craft skills” (report p.12) and between these ones, the most valued are the “Craft skills”.

Among the “Professional skills”, the most valued are “Technical skills” (report p.13).

“Relationship management” are the top scored among the “Functional Skills” (report p.15).

Overall, the main points emerged from the survey are the ability to define the product the client is asking for; the skills related to the production of a quality product; the importance of the creative solution of problems; the abilities of Teamwork and Service orientation.

The second step of the project was to build a Networking platform (available online – https://cerasmus.eu/forums/), an on-line virtual environment addressed to ceramics key actors and stakeholders to discuss the main issues emerged from the assessment stage and to open a permanent forum for assuring closer cooperation.

The third step of Cerasmus+ was to elaborate 6 training curricula, dor initial and continuing VET, on the topics of:

• Tradition and Innovation: aimed at improving the ceramic craft sector value chain with reference to production techniques which keep together tradition and innovation (i.e. 3D printing, Photoshop for industrial tiles lines);

• Urban Environment: aimed at improving the valorisation of urban environment through ceramics craft with reference to methodologies for enhancing networking between VET and ceramic craft industry;

• Business start-ups: aimed at improving the support for ceramics craft business start-ups with reference to the protection of the EU traditional heritage, and of the strengthening and modernization of the ceramic sector value.

The trainings were drafted by Viola Emaldi (specialist in didactic for ceramics) and tested by the partners (the results of the testing are available online – shorturl.at/dpDHV). The final version of the trainings will be released soon and will be free to download in the Cerasmus+ website: https://cerasmus.eu/project/documents/.

The last step of the project was to elaborate Guidelines for the ceramic sector development, the promotion of vocational training in ceramic craft industry enhancing work based learning models and realising actions for networking, innovation and valorization of heritage. The guidelines are available online – shorturl.at/ouCDL.

During the final meeting, the partners discussed the results of the testing phase on the trainings and the guidelines, reaching the conclusion that it will be helpful to add to the original draft of

the trainings a unit about the whole life of the ceramic material; about environmental awareness; fundraising methods for start-ups; graphic for communication.

The partnership meeting in Manises also included a study visit to the ceramic museum and the visit to the Biennal of ceramics (more information: shorturl.at/huvEQ).

After 2 years of intense transnational work, which has involved 6 countries and 8 partners, the Cerasmus+ project is ending with the full accomplishment of the objectives: the ceramic sector training needs were successfully assessed, and as a result the partnership produced a set of trainings, including specific curricula and reference educational resources for initial and continuing VET, focused in work based learning, aimed at letting ceramics professionals gain transversal and professional competences for the improvement of sector “value chain”, of models and means for valorization of urban environment, and for supporting business start-up.

Giuseppe Olmeti, Secretary General of AEuCC, states: “Cerasmus+ is a project that has really exceeded not only the expectations, but also the programs that, together with the lead partner, we have set from the beginning. The extremely qualified resources made available by the partners met in a spirit of friendship, positivity and professionalism, realizing not only the objectives envisaged by the project, but gradually expanding them with additions and improvements compared to the original program, to the point that today a Cerasmus2 is not only desirable but almost necessary.”

All the materials produced by the Cerasmus+ project are available online, for all the ceramic stakeholders to download and use. We now look forward to propose the Cerasmus2 project, in order to keep researching and working for the improvement of the traditional art and craft ceramic sector in Europe.

Website – https://cerasmus.eu/

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/cerasmusplus/

Youtube – https://bit.ly/2P1ZYtO

Press office Cerasmus+: AEuCC (Giuseppe Olmeti, Paola Casta, Elisa Emiliani)
communication@cerasmus.eu