Mr Bodo Venker, IHK Project Manager for Professional Education, explained the aim of the project during the ceremony in the company on the occasion of the signing: “With our cooperation project, we would like to support teachers with the preparation and delivery of their lessons in an even more practically oriented manner, and to offer the students practical insights into the occupational world. Besides that, we want to help our member companies to better understand the school systems and their culture. Because of the demographic change there is a rising demand from the economy and the industry for young trainees. Our aim is to provide a cooperation partner for all secondary schools in the region, provided that they wish this.”
“At IWN, we think in the long term”, said Reinhold Schulte, owner and manager of the IWN company. “Today we are an ambitious family enterprise which designs, manufactures, and develops very precise prefabricated parts for very different industries and operational areas. For the future stability of our company we must be even better and more successful in the future than we are today. Hence, we are working on the realisation of this aim very actively” said Mr Schulte. “Also in the future, we shall need the successful mixture of experienced skilled workers and young talents, in order to be prepared for the varying challenges of the markets” said the IWN manager.
The new cooperation with the Kuhlo secondary school and the IHK enables local schoolgirls and schoolboys to follow their interest in a company training in a technical field (the so-called MINT subjects). “The youngsters, and also the teachers and even the parents, have with us the possibility to get a feel for everyday life in a technical company in the areas of production, administration or in the logistics: Either for a few hours with a guided tour; or for a few days as an accompanied company trial period; or within the scope of a work-shadowing of several weeks up to an internship lasting several months”, explained Mr Schulte. IWN wants to demonstrate, together with the school and the IHK, which diverse fields of employment and continuing education possibilities are waiting for the school children from today who may wish to decide on the professional training in the metal-working production engineering industries.
Also Mrs Inge Milbrandt-Finkbeiner, Director of the Kuhlo Secondary School, is pleased about the future cooperation with IWN. “It is especially valuable for us that we can inform schoolgirls and schoolboys who are studying subjects in the Natural Sciences field, about the company training opportunities and the professional chances in the MINT area with this new cooperation. Thereby we can offer an understanding to them of a future-orientated occupational field which corresponds exactly to the interests of this group of schoolchildren. During the ‘Boys and Girls Day’ schoolgirls and schoolboys of the school had the chance to get to know IWN as a company” according to Mrs Milbrandt-Finkbeiner. “Now we very excited about the joint projects upon which we have agreed during very constructive talks.” Moreover, she hopes for a gainful relationship “which shall bring the schoolgirls and schoolboys practical insights into the professional life and wake up and deepen also the interest in them for this special occupational field”.
For the IHK it is meanwhile the 230th cooperation, and the 57th in Bielefeld, which they have started rolling!
German text source for the english translation: Pressemitteilung der IHK Ostwestfalen zu Bielefeld, 19.6.2019
