Greenland has embarked upon an ambitious project to establish what are known as Pilersitsiviit colleges across all five municipalities in the territory. “Pilersitsiviit” is a West Greenlandic term and loosely translates as “a place where you do things”. This tallies well with the practical type of training the project plans to deliver, which will allow young Greenlanders to train for roles such as construction worker and kitchen assistant.
The point of departure for this project is the fact that Greenland has a demographic of many skilled workers reaching the end of their working lives and fewer young people able to step into their shoes. The number of young people between the ages of 16 and 25 years old who were not in work or education in 2022 amounted to 2081.
The project is backed by the current government and has a budget of DKK 10 million to fund the operation of 5 colleges, in addition to a further DKK 1 million to support development costs. Delivery of the project is taking place through close collaboration between the various municipalities and providers of on-the-job and vocational training programmes.
The colleges are scheduled to open in 2025 and be evaluated in 2026 prior to the teaching method being extended to other locations.
Our primary aim is to motivate young people to take up vocational training,” says project manager Kistâra Motzfeldt Vahl.
Motivating young people to take up vocational training
The goal is for young people to take the step into work or education, but there is another overarching aim.
“Our primary aim is to motivate young people to take up vocational training. This is why the Pilersitsiviit colleges are working in close collaboration with vocational training centres across Greenland,” says Kistâra Motzfeldt Vahl,who is the project manager responsible for the new scheme.
The workshop-based vocational instructors spent 2024 getting to grips with project-based learning and in 2025 they will be familiarising themselves with didactics and pedagogy.
“We’re in the midst of preparations. This includes the delivery of courses for the instructors across all five colleges,” says Kistâra Motzfeldt Vahl.
The project has developed two different types of validation material. One of these is summative in nature and is used to evaluate professional development. The other is a formative validation tool for exploring personal and general skills.
Visual dialogue material helps students to reflect on their general skills
The formative validation material will be used on a continuous basis in conversations between instructors and students, with the focus on the student’s development of general skills. A conversation wheel is used as a visual aid to this type of dialogue. See link.
The conversation wheel is divided into four segments covering the various general skills, with each one including statements that students must respond to when talking to their instructor:
- Communication – “I like to receive feedback on my work”, “I talk to others”.
- Self-confidence – “I make mistakes but that doesn’t matter much”, “I’ve thought about what I can do better next time”.
- Leadership – “Even though the work was boring in the short term, I stubbornly kept on going.”
- Commitment – “I’ve felt optimistic about the work”, “I’ve found new solutions by thinking in new ways”.
The material has two purposes. Firstly, it affords the student an opportunity to reflect on their existing skills. Follow-up sessions between student and teacher should also help the student to grow.
The material is visual in nature to allow it to be used in dialogue, and it is a good way of demonstrating the student’s individual progress.
“The idea is that the conversation wheel is used in dialogue with our young students. The reason why we have developed these visual conversation cards is that we want to be able to show individual progress in the best way possible, instead of having a chat without anything to look at,” says Kistâra Motzfeldt Vahl.
Another important aspect is that the focus on the conversation wheel is firmly on the skills the student already has, rather than those they don’t. The instructor is able to provide students with reassurance by setting out a clear schedule for when and how often they will return to the validation process.
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges for the project is the relatively small size of the population (approximately 56,000 people) and its geographical spread. A particular problem it faces is the difficulty of finding skilled personnel from a small talent pool. There is also a rising need for centralised support for college staff.
However, Greenland hopes that by bridging the gap between education and work the initiative will improve the future prospects of young Greenlanders and create a more inclusive labour market.
This article is from the NLL report: Gör alla kompetenser Synliga!
Read the original article in Swedish here.
