The Building Education Programme

We can observe changes in the labour market, the standard and quality of life, even the mentality of the Polish people, but the education system stays the same. Education at the vocational level is not evolving, and firms from various branches of industry, including the construction sector, have not done anything up to now to recruit workers other than in the standard way. And today’s archaic standard of education is not able to meet the needs of the developing economy and construction sector and to fulfil customers’ expectations. We are also up against a serious problem which affects the whole of the construction industry: the exodus of Polish specialists and skilled workers to Western Europe, especially the UK, Ireland and France. We are faced with a serious shortage of workers in key trades. At the same time, statistics show that interest in the main building professions has fallen in recent years.

What Warbud is offering

After carrying out detailed projections and analysis, we have launched a project called “Our pupil. Our employee. Warbud SA”. This is a Building Education Programme involving direct cooperation with selected vocational schools which, with their tested teaching resources and staff who know the realities of modern construction, prepare trainees in the building trades to take up difficult and responsible work on building projects. We will give young people a secure future by helping them to start their careers, while at the same time we provide ourselves with workers and restore the deserved prestige of the building professions. Because Polish builders working in the West are perceived as reliable professionals in their respective trades, it is high time that they attained the same standing in their own country.

Involved in our Building Education Programme are schools in Radom, Elblag and Augustow which train carpenters and assemblers of formwork systems as well as steel fixers and concrete placers, and the Building Technical School in Warsaw, whose graduates will take up qualified technical positions which are integral to the structure of the modern construction industry.

Within the framework of the Building Education Programme, Warbud SA offers a rich support package for schools:

• provision of teaching equipment to schools 
• apparatus for practical training 
• training for vocational teachers 
• instruction visits to building sites
  
  for students:
  
  
• scholarships 
• financing for French language learning 
• work experience at Warbud 
• work experience at VINCI 
• employment at Warbud for school graduates

Our main shareholder, the French concern VINCI, also plays an important role in our Building Education Programme. The French company gives financial support for the teaching of French to vocational school students and offers the possibility of gaining practical experience on French building sites.

We expect that each of the schools will form at least one class specializing in carpentry/assembly of formwork systems and steel fixing/concrete placement, and that the Technical School will form a class specializing in general construction. We will see the first results after 2 or 3 years, when graduates of the vocational schools complete their education and – we hope – join the Warbud team. Further activity under the Building Education Programme will depend on an evaluation of the goals achieved.