Dualiza Bankia.  Training in digital competences in Dual Vocational Training[1]

The initiative aims to provide skills and training to students in dual vocational training. Created trainings alternate between that received in an educational centre and that received in the company.
Dualiza Bankia is the brand through which the Bankia Foundation for Dual Training channels all of its activities to promote and enhance the prestige of vocational training and its dual-mode. It represents the unequivocal commitment acquired by Bankia with the promotion of education, as a way of improving society, combating inequality, and promoting greater social cohesion and more specifically Vocational Training. The assumption behind these activities is that the practical training improves the employability possibilities for students and the competitiveness of companies.

The type of implemented measures is articulated through agreements between Bankia, the councils of autonomous communities, local governments and local business associations.
Once agreed, a series of educational centres are selected in which the training is provided.

Students receive between 150 and 200 hours of additional training to their programs in digital skills, which reinforce their professional skills needed to exercise the professional profile that the business sector demands in terms of digitalization, allowing them to increase their professional quality and improve their employability.
In the second stage, students use the acquired skills in the companies.

Companies benefit from this programme in a several ways. They receive young people with technological training in skills that are scarce in the labour market and, also, when they hire people under 30 years of age, they receive reductions and bonuses on their Social Security contributions.

The contents of the Ditec training includes the following elements:

•    Digitalisation: Its aim is to make students aware of the impact and importance of digitalisation in the business environment. Main innovation methodologies are focused on the client for the design and agile development of digital products. Tools: Slack, Trello, Google G Suite, Business Model Canvas, Customer Journey, Empathy Map, etc.

•    Digital Marketing: Its aim is to introduce students to the main techniques of digital marketing, design of a digital marketing plan, web positioning. Tools: Semrush, SeoMoz, Majestic, Google Adwords, Facebook Ads, G. Analytics and Mailchimp.

•    Ux user experience: The aim of this element is to assess the knowledge of students on the Ux, and to teach them what impact Ux has on the business as a tool for digital customer loyalty. Tools: Nav Flow, Information Architecture, Atomic Design, Wireframes with POP, Mockups with Proto.io

•    Web programming: Its aim is to help to your people acquiring technical skills for the development of web applications. The Frontend development is based on Google's framework (AngularJS) and the Backend will be based on the Django framework. Tools: SQLLite databases, JS languages, AngularJS, Python, Django, HTML5, CSS3, Chrome Console.

The projects are financed with funds from the Bankia Foundation together with European funds and participation from the Autonomous Regions.

Strengths and lessons learnt

The programme provides vocational students with training in digital skills that are not included in their training itinerary.
It provides companies with the possibility of approaching people from vocational training with a good range of digital skills, thus increasing the competitiveness of the companies.

Having a good repertoire of digital skills is fundamental in the daily life of any citizen, but even more so for professionals, of any branch.
It is an added value for the training of "manual" workers or operators and not only for those people with an academic profile specifically related to computing or ICT.