On October 15, the JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel hosted the second edition of the EduPro Summit – Education that Works, organized by AHK Romania through its EduPro Professional Training Center. DeBizz, through Teaha Management Consulting, was a partner of the event. The conference was attended by representatives from the business community, the education system, and public authorities.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Discussions focused on three themes: how to prepare people for a labor market transformed by technology and artificial intelligence, how to align education with the real needs of the economy, and why lifelong learning has become a prerequisite for competitiveness.
“Vocational education—and, in particular, dual vocational education—is a shared responsibility,” emphasized Sebastian Metz, Director General of AHK Romania, in his opening remarks at the conference.
From School to Career. The first panel analyzed the outcomes of dual vocational education and how young people transition from school to the labor market. One of the conclusions was that the link between the qualifications offered by schools and the skills required by the economy must be much closer. To this end, CNDIPT has begun revising the approximately 200 qualifications in the dual system to include new requirements in fields such as green technologies and artificial intelligence.
10 Years of “School of Books and Trades.” This edition also marked a decade since the launch of AHK Romania’s dual education project. Together with six business partners (Hornbach, Lidl, Metro, Penny/Rewe, Selgros, and dm drogerie markt), 10 cohorts of students have been trained across 13 high schools. Approximately 1,200 young people completed the dual training program, and over 400 received certification from the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Lifelong learning: the new key competency. The second panel shifted the discussion to professional life: reskilling, upskilling, leadership, and well-being. The conclusion was that recruitment alone is no longer sufficient and that organizations must develop their own people. “Today’s employees do not need a narrow specialization, but rather the ability to constantly learn and relearn,” noted Dan Lăzărescu, General Manager of Robert Bosch SRL and Vice President of AHK Romania.
Awards. Grup Feroviar Român received the Bildungspreis, the AHK-DIHK network’s Award for Excellence in Education, for the GFR School project. Penny Romania received the certification “This company provides training through the dual vocational system.”
The summit’s central message—reinforced by the motto “Education that works!”—is one that we at Teaha Management Consulting fully support: the shortage of people and skills cannot be solved through recruitment alone. The skills the economy needs are built collaboratively by schools, companies, authorities, and society.