Dr. Ernő Gyimes,

associate professor

University of Szeged

email: Е-мейл адресът e защитен от спам ботове.

1.               What kind of support was the tender completed? (EU support + national support)

The program was realized under the common financing of Hungary and EU.

EU support: European Social Fund

National support: HEFOP: Operative Human Resources

Project number: HEFOP-3.3.1-P.-2004-06-0086/1.0

2.               Title of the tender, its duration, rate of support

Title: Environment protecting technologies in the food industry: Processing, technical diagnostics, information-technology or the life-long learning and the market-needs – real knowledge in the food sector.

Rate of support: The budget of the project: 183.500.000 Ft, which coveres the work of the 10 consortium-partners.

Duration: The real work started on 01.08.2007 and will end on 31.06.2008.

3.               Summary

The short trainings were focusing on the acquirement of certain task materials in different important subjects. The subjects were developed together with all the consortium partners, considering the needs of Hungarian food industry companies. The professional work is performed by technical teams formed by the representatives of different professional areas. In this programme our consortium is the greatest, involving the following participants: University of Szeged Department of Engineering, University of Debrecen Centre of Agro-sciences, Chamber of Trade and Commerce of Csongrád County, Milk Product Board, Poultry Product Board, Animal and Meat-Product Board, Association of Sweets Producers, Chamber of Agriculture of Hajdú-Bihar County, Bács Agro-Haus Public Benefit Company, and the Scientific Union of the Machine Industry.

Detailed presentation of the project subject

The development of technology in the recent years was extremely accelerated all over the word. New materials, technological and information-technology results appeared which not always were known by the representatives of middle management, who are on the other hand talented professionals.

Same changes were introduced in the EU legal, judicial harmonization, food safety and environment protecting processing, too.

The new up-to-date knowledge transfer in the food industry (especially short vocational trainings) creates possibilities for the elder generation to synchronize and update their knowledge with the young generation, who possess current theoretical knowledge, but miss the practical experiences.

The main part of the training is informatics, because the traceability of the products “from the farm to fork” cannot be performed without computer knowledge. While preparing the training materials, some pretences of elder generation are also taking in consideration.

The start of this programme is justified by the fact that several young and middle age professionals living in these regions, have a different degree than agriculture, but during the changing of the regime they became (or were forced to change in) entrepreneurs. They have a need to acquire up-to-date knowledge, but because of competition reasons, they cannot participate on long duration courses. The professionals of this section are aware that they can survive on the EU market only if they manufacture their products with the latest technology and the minimal load and protection of the environment, with conscious work and by the changing of the production systems.

4.               Aims

The main aim of the project

The aim of this project is to assure the principle of equality in chances for the professionals with higher degrees (target group) being got in disadvantageous position; to ameliorate their value on the manpower market by the new vocational training programmes developed by universities, professional organizations and chambers.

The start of this programme is justified by the fact that several young and middle age professionals living in these regions, have a different degree than agriculture, but during the changing of the regime they became (or were forced to change in) entrepreneurs. They have a need to acquire up-to-date knowledge, but because of competition reasons, they cannot participate on long duration courses. The professionals of this section are aware that they can survive on the EU market only if they manufacture their products with the latest technology and the minimal load and protection of the environment, with conscious work and by the changing of the production systems.

Due to the project support our trainings are free of charge. The audience was paid with daily allowances, and supplied with accommodation and transportation contribution. The participants received the printed and/or the electronic version of the training materials.

The target audiences of the project were employee with university degree, so the financial support could be given only to this target group; but not only workers with higher scholar degrees could attend our courses.

The general and particular aims of the project

General objectives

·                     • Improvement of the disadvantageous situation, of the manpower market value for the university degree employee; by the collaboration of universities, professional organizations and chambers, by the means of newly developed vocational training programmes.

·                     • Formation of consortiums to improve the cooperation among universities of agronomic profile and rural, local and regional non-profit organizations.

·                     • Enlargement of the vocational training programmes of national and especially the Hungarian Southern-Plain regions, the improvement with economic expectations, development strategies; extension of the programme on national and international level.

·                     • Improvement of the role of university qualifications, strengthening the environment-protecting thinking and mentality, to carry on and validate the economical and EU expectations and methods.

·                     • Creation of an intellectual, practical and empirical capital, based on the consortium partners’ experiments and knowledge, using their common information and experiences, which can create a significant positive changing in the national man-powers’ bases. 

Particular objectives

·                     • Development of a competence-based modular training programme using an internationally recognized method (DACUM); integrating the EU compatibility and the special needs of the national food producers, processors.

·                     • Development of a training material needed by the project; dissemination of the project results, and extension on a national and international level.

·                     • The programme accreditation will give possibility to establish a long term financing system.

• To sustain the long-term accredited status of the programme in the partner agro-universities and high-schools, with the further intellectual help and cooperation of the consortium partners.

·                     • To create the training possibility for professionals, to increase their man-power or employee-value, to improve their competence level and their chance to find a job, to enhance the usage of the research and scientific results in the economic life.

5.               Participants

·                     University of Szeged, Department of Engineering

·                     University of Debrecen Centre of Agro-sciences

·                     Chamber of Trade and Commerce of Csongrád County

·                     Milk Product Board

·                     Poultry Product Board

·                     Animal and Meat-Product Board

·                     Association of Sweets Producers

·                     Chamber of Agriculture of Hajdú-Bihar County

·                     Bács Agro-Haus Public Benefit Company

·                     Scientific Union of the Machine Industry

The project organization and its action

Each consortium partner delegates its representative – the so called “project leader” of each institution – to the project Leader Commission. The main duties, the decision competence, the meetings order and regularity of Leader Commission are fixed in the Action Regulation of the Commission.

The harmonization of the operational work is the duty of the project coordinator (project manager):

·                     to assure the flow of information, to handle the feedbacks,

·                     to supervise and document the performance of project activities connected with quality assurance,

·                     to prepare the information for the meetings of the Leading Commission,

·                     the coordination of the performance of Commission’s decisions, the follow up of the decisions on the level of the professional teams.

With the realizations and the progress of the project packages, the composition and number of project teams are changing. They are delegated by the member organizations of the consortium. Their work represents a real cooperation among the professional organizations. They have a main role in the preparation of competence-based modular training systems, the subject and content of the modules, the definition of the modules’ succession, the preparation and expertise of the training printed materials and learning guides, in the development of the measuring system of the competence-learning and knowledge.

The members of the project management

·                     Bajúszné dr. Kabók Katalin (college, academy) associate professor

·                     Bara Tamásné Dr. (college, academy) associate professor

·                     Dr. Eszes Ferenc (college, academy) associate professor

·                     Prof. Dr. Fenyvessy József (university) associate professor

·                     Forgács Endre főiskolai (college, academy) assistant professor

·                     Dr. habil. Véha Antal project leader

·                     Dr. Gyimes Ernő project manager

·                     Hodúr Cecília Dr. (college, academy) associate professor,

·                     Horváthné Dr. Almássy Katalin (college, academy) associate professor

·                     Jankóné Dr. Forgács Judit (college, academy) associate professor

·                     László Zsuzsanna Dr. (college, academy) associate professor

·                     Nagy Elemérné Dr. (college, academy) associate professor

·                     Gálné Szabados Ibolya account manager

·                     Supply management

The services linked to the project and assured for the target groups and all the supply connected to the trainings have been performed in conformity with the regulation of the Public Procurement Law

6.               Target group

Persons with high-education, with university or college degree

Personal data of the applicants

Exact data are not yet available, because the statistical evaluation can be done only after fulfilling the last training course. What we can see in advance: the number of applicants was over 600 persons. Just to form an idea: in the project preparation we planned a number of 160 persons. This success of the project is due to the favourable economic possibility (courses free of charge), and also the very well chosen topics of the training courses. The majority of the applicants were represented by women, which is a very joyful situation. They were also in majority among the teachers of the trainings. A great number of the applicants were unemployed, but the majority of the participants belonged to a regular staff of several organizations. Many organizations assured the training possibility to their employee. But unfortunately we had negative examples too, when the employee’s superior manager did not approve the training opportunity for the workers, even if they knew that the vocational training is free of charge.

7.               Experience

We plan to publish the results of the project in the near future. The web-page of the project will be continuously developed; we will continue the information and communication and the testing of the e-learning systems; moreover with the usage of the above mentioned facts we wish to take part in further tenders and projects, too.

8.               Type of dissemination, any other application of the results

As a finish of this programme, by the end of June, on several places of the country, conference series will be held as so called “road show” sessions. During the conferences, beside the results of the project, our future idea and conception will be also presented.

We plan to publish the results of the project in the near future. The home-page of the project will be further developed, this will be used for communication, and the e-learning system will be tested, too. By the help of this system we are willing to participate in future project programmes.

9.               Evaluation of the results achieved by the project

Observing the objective data and results, the training can be qualified as being very successful. Regarding the planned number of 160 participants, the project over fulfilled its scope. Several participants have taken part on more than two or three courses extended in this way their knowledge. This fact represents the quality of the work performed during the project.

You can read below the comment of an enthusiastic training participant:

“… it was an honorific pleasure to take part on the courses organized by You, I have got lots of interesting and useful knowledge during these training courses. I also have thanked to the teachers at (almost) each occasion for the valuable information we have received. Now I do it again. I thank for the teachers and professors for their time, work and awareness, which helped me to develop my professional knowledge. Certainly, I am ready to participate again in the future on such, high level professional trainings.”