Development Workshop (Kalkınma Atölyesi)

The dissemination of this model would address the following needs/problems in vocational education in Turkey:
– Lack of opportunities in sectors beyond student internships.
– Lack of an interactive, collaborative, and online platform that brings together not only teachers and students but also sector representatives together to solve real life problems and support vocational and education training (VET) students’ adaptation towards business life.
– Need to develop new and relevant skills of students and teachers in order to widen their vision and change the negative perception towards VET.

VEGA would be designed as an online, open platform model that enables students to come together with teachers and sector representatives in different provinces and schools.

The Development Workshop conducted the “Developing 21st Century Skills at Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School Project” in collaboration with Koc Holding, IBM-Turk and the Ministry of Education. The three important outcomes of this project were (a) the curriculum of the Vocational Development Lesson on developing 21st century skills; (b) the purposeful and meaningful sector-school collaboration model based on design thinking; and c) setting up the studio supporting the enactment of the developed model. Among these outcomes, at this point, there is a need to popularize the model in a sustainable way on a national scale since this model was implemented only in one school with limited resources. The DW team conducted six interviews with students, teachers and sector representatives in order to gather feedback about their solution. Based on the interviews, the DW team is seeking for alternative solutions for testing out their online platform.