The AZB has been offering courses to international participants on the subject of energy efficiency since 2004. Last week the AZB hosted a group of 12 construction trainers from the UK, who have come here to Hamburg to improve their knowledge of sustainable construction methods. The aim of the course is to teach skills and knowledge that can easily be passed on in their lessons. The AZB has worked in cooperation with EUCONTACT Ltd, to provide this opportunity with funding from the European Union under the Leonardo da Vinci Lifelong Learning Programme (VETPRO strand).
The course started with an introduction and a tour around the AZB’s facilities. I think this was of particular interest to the visitors as construction training is not set up in the same way in the UK. On the whole, German construction apprentices undertake a 3-part apprenticeship with a construction company; 1 part theory at vocational school, 1 part practical sessions (at AZB) and 1 part within a construction company.
The second day of the course kicked off with an introduction to the passive house concept – something, which we here at the AZB consider to be a possible future house standard in terms of sustainable and energy saving construction. AZB works with the project Build with CaRe to promote energy efficient building and is developing a number of learning resources to achieve this knowledge transfer.
The achievement of the PassivHaus standard (and energy efficient building) in its nature exemplifies some of the problems that may exist in the current level of workmanship in the construction industry. Passive houses require a high level of accuracy – e.g. in order to make them completely air-tight. This means that there is no room for the “that’ll do” attitude which often exists among many construction workers.
The challenge facing the construction teachers now is- how to change this attitude? -especially when it exists among so many of the employers from whom current trainees are learning new skills?
The morning closed with a discussion about how to change attitudes among the trainees. The discussion highlighted some of the problems experienced in the UK system:
- Some construction trainees are paid to go to college, which has led to some students being there just for this payment rather than a real desire to learn.
- The lack of promotion of the building trade as an important career within schools leads to more and more people seeing it as one of the options for pupils if school grades are bad, rather than an option also for those with higher grades.
- The mentality of ‘getting the job done as quickly as possible’ rather than to the best quality possible.
The overall image of the construction industry needs to change so that it is seen as a career worthy of respect. Perhaps when this capacity exists, construction trainees will be more able to recognise the positive impact they could have through their work in sustainable building, and take more pride in their work.
The rest of the week’s course involved a mixture of theoretical presentations and practical sessions which provided the opportunity for an exchange of knowledge and further discussions around more specific, task-related topics. This ‘learning through doing’ approach is particularly effective for the transfer of knowledge.
This newly-gained knowledge will be taken back to the UK and transferred again to trainees. Ideally, it could be transferred further from trainees to their future employers and from the employers to the other employees and so on and so on……
To find out more about the courses run by the AZB, please contact Matthias Wurtzel
email: matthias.wurtzel@azb-hamburg.de
