PaintingSkillsAcademy – the Sector Skills Academy set up by a European Painting Skills Alliance – and a model for the European crafts

BACKGROUNDPaintingSkillsAcademy (PSA) is based on needs for the painting trade:1) VET must become more attractive to young people, more young people need to be won for crafts.2) Lack of knowledge, skills and competences inevitably lead to poor processing of orders and to economic damage.3) VET in the European context is underdeveloped, however, quality or flawless execution is important in all countries. PSA develops products for the painting trade and shows how to use them in other sectors.OBJECTIVESThe PaintingSkillsAcademy creates a structure for basic and further training for the European painting trade, which uses jointly defined qualification standards and sample curricula as a basis and makes target group-specific offers via the partners involved in the Academy. The Academy is implemented under the aegis of the European umbrella organization UNIEP.IMPLEMENTATIONThe path to the academy goes through the description of quality standards and units of learning outcomes for the painting trade at levels 1-6 of the European Qualifications Framework, design of curricula that make a statement on HOW the learning outcomes described above can be acquired, recognition of prior learning and competence assessment mechanisms, the development of a system of target-group specific training offers until a business case and roadmap for the operation after the funding.RESULTS- “Real” comparability of the competencies required and the skills that can be acquired in the individual countries of the project partner countries- No European lowest common denominator, but real transparency- Detailed documents from WP3 and WP4 enable the acquisition of skills that are precisely tailored to the job market- Course system (time and place independence)- Foundation of a self-sustaining academy for the painting trade on a European level