Education and Energy make the Future

Training of Trainers for a world with a future for vocational school teachers from African countries.

In cooperation with the community of Wildpoldsried, the vocational training centres of the Bavarian economy (bfz) gGmbH are currently training 18 vocational school teachers from African countries in the handling and construction of renewable energy systems.

The French-speaking participants come from Benin, Togo, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Burundi and Rwanda. At the Ecological Education Centre  in Wildpoldsried, they will learn the basics of electrical engineering and energy engineering as well as the construction of a functional solar suitcase(1). This serves as an object for study for own further education in their home countries. Every student commits to teach at least 50 apprentices a year the learned content. The students are supported by Bavarian vocational school teachers as mentors.

Practical communication has the highest priority in this train-the-trainer seminar. The participants appreciate it a lot. They work enthusiastically and are happy about what they are allowed to learn. While mounting the functional solar suitcase some students lack in terms of practical experience in dealing with drills. All the better  that experienced coaches like Willi Kirchensteiner, Manfred Wolf and Thomas Pfluger are there and can help.

The training, financed by the Giz program "Grüne Bürgerenergie", shows the participants how to impart technical basics to their students in a practical and vivid way. Unfortunately, vocational education in many countries is still too theoretical and too little practically orientated. As a consequence, there are too few specialists, especially in the technical field. Many exercises about measuring the voltage, frequency and charging capacity demonstrate how to use the suitcase for teaching. With the aid of a measuring interface, the participants test how quickly the solar radiation changes according to the angle and how this influences the charging result.

(1) Concept by Wilhelm Kirchensteiner /teaching material by Firma Christiani