At last a student forestry championship will be held in Spain!!
A bit of history: Competitions between VET students in Spain have a long history. The first VET student championship was held in Spain in 1947. Due to the diffusion of this Spanish initiative, in 1953, young people from Germany, Morocco, the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland took part. In the following years, the rest of the European countries that today form part of the international organisation joined the competitions. The last time that Spain had organised a competition was in 1975, although it continued to participate until 1991, when it left the international organisation. In May 2005, during the General Assembly held in Helsinki, Spain returned to the organisation as an official member. Since 2006, the Ministry of Education of Spain has promoted national competitions under the name of Spainskills, and has participated in world and European championships.
However, these competitions between students in Spain are focused on trades that are more in demand, such as construction and the service sector. Within agrarian training in Spain, there are at the moment only competitions in landscaping and floristry.
That is why we, at Europea-Spain, are very proud to have promoted the first student forestry championship in Spain. It will be held on the 26th and 27th of February 2024 at the CPIFP Montearagón, school located in Huesca, in the Autonomous Community of Aragón, in the north of Spain. This year it will be held on a trial basis with the participation of 12 schools from 5 Autonomous Communities. The tasks have been defined taking as a reference the rules and evaluation protocols of the European championship of students in forestry skills.
This year, as a prize for the winners, Europea-Spain will offer 4 mobilities to the winning team so that they can participate in the next European student championship to be held in Romania. We know that our students, being the first year that we organise this championship, will probably not have such a high level as the rest of the students, but we know that the most important thing is that the student enjoys, increase motivation and meets other students from different countries.
If all goes well, in 2025 the official championship between the partner schools of our association will be launched from Europea-Spain. But that’s another story that we will tell you next year, wait for it ….
Text by Gonzalo Barredo de Valenzuela Corral
Pic 1: Franz W (pixabay)
Pic 2: Gonzalo Barredo de Valenzuela Corral
