OMV Petrom launched a campaign to support blue-collar education

Cristina Blanaru Business, CSR

OMV Petrom launched “România Meseriașă” (Blue-Collar Romania), a campaign that aims to make Romanians aware of the importance of the education needed to form blue-collar professionals, the potential Romania has in this area and the need to find solutions to support the educational system forming blue-collar workers.

Poster Romania Meseriasa

This summer, the Blue-Collar Camp from Andrei’s Country takes the forms of a new OMV Petrom educational project dedicated to students from 9th to 11th grade from technological high-schools and professional schools. Starting from the needs of the local labor market, the project supports a few specializations dedicated to the students: hair-dresser, tailor, cook and auto-mechanic. The purpose of the camp is to come complete the study schedule and help students to be more prepared for the labor market after they finish their schooling.

Each school or high-school included in the program had the opportunity to enter the competition not only students, but also teachers. From the over 85 applications, 40 teachers were selected to accompany the future blue-collar professionals to the camp. Besides participating to the activities dedicated to the students, they will also attend classes dedicated to understanding adolescents, offered by the National Center for Human Resources Development and YourWay company. Also, the 200 students attending the camp will be evaluated from vocational point of view by a team of specialists. The best 20 students will be rewarded a monthly study scholarship of RON 500 for the entire 2015-201 school year.

As part of “Romania Meseriasa”, OMV Petrom will start a study aiming to identify the real needs the companies have from the professional sector, the expectations of workers from the labor market and the desires of students that want to embrace a certain profession. In the same time, the study will also consider the perception of the large public when it comes of these professional categories. The results of the study will be released during autumn.

Our country needs blue-collar workers – it is a fact that cannot be ignored. We aim, with this campaign, to identify solutions together with representatives of the authorities, but also with representatives of the private sector, the place where the deficit of qualified people is now resented. Everyone’s involvement in supporting the professional education for Romania’s development is vital. This campaign supports the direction we followed during the last year in our CSR strategy, namely to develop everyone, from young to adult, through the power of education

Mona Nicolici,

Manager Sustainability OMV Petrom.

According to the most recent Romanian official statistics, at country’s level there are only 134 schools that can be associated to professional and specialized education, compared to 1990, when 1.306 of those institutions existed. INS data also showed that, officially, there are now registered only 7 professional schools, compared to 717 in 1992 and only 127 post-lyceum schools compared to 379 in 1992 and no technical schools compared to 210 in 1992.

Starting 2012-2013 school year, Romanian Education Ministry introduced the 2-years professional education after the 9th grade and, starting 2014-2015, the 3-years professional education after gymnasium’s end was also introduced. With the 2 educational forms dedicated to forming blue-collar professionals, the aim is to increase the percentage allocated to practical preparation of students to the headquarters of different companies, with the educational programs being made by industrial specialists in order to insure the match between the education and the reality of the labor market. The companies’ demand for blue-collar workers increased considerably, as for the 2-years specialization there were offered, last year, 18.123 work places and, for the 3-years specialization are available, in 2015-2016, 38.158 places in 1.376 classes.