ABSTRACT

Vocational education and training (VET) can play a transformative role in reducing CO₂ emissions and improving the energy efficiency of buildings across Europe. Nearly zero energy building (NZEB) requires an energy literate workforce, with broader and deeper theoretical knowledge, higher technical and precision skills, interdisciplinary understanding, and a wide range of transversal competences. Through an investigation into VET for low energy construction (LEC) in 10 European countries, the article identifies a range of different strategies advanced under constraints imposed by the VET systems and construction labour markets. At one extreme, representing the ‘high road’, LEC elements are mainstreamed into broad-based occupational profiles, curricula and qualifications, whilst at the other, the ‘low’ road, short, specific and one-off LEC courses simply aim to plug existing ‘skills’ gaps. It is argued that the ‘high road’ approach, in encompassing a broad concept of agency, successfully addresses NZEB requirements whereas the ‘low road’ represents an instrumentalist approach to labour that jeopardises the achievement of higher energy efficiency standards. The article concludes by presenting a transparency tool set within the European Qualifications Framework, against which different VET for LEC programmes can be assessed.

摘要

职业教育和培训（VET）可以在减少CO ₂方面发挥变革性作用排放并提高欧洲建筑物的能源效率。几乎为零的能源建筑（NZEB）需要具有能源素养的劳动力，他们具有更广泛和更深入的理论知识，更高的技术和精密技能，跨学科的理解以及广泛的横向能力。通过对10个欧洲国家/地区的低能耗建筑职业教育与培训进行的调查，本文确定了在职业教育与培训系统和建筑劳动力市场强加的约束下提出的一系列不同策略。在一个代表“道路”的极端情况下，LEC要素被主流化为基础广泛的职业概况，课程和学历，而在另一方面，“道路”，短期，专门和一次性的LEC课程只是旨在堵塞现有的“技能”差距。有人认为，“高速公路”方法 在涵盖广泛的代理机构概念时，成功满足了NZEB的要求，而“低路”则代表了一种工具主义的劳动方式，危害了更高能效标准的实现。本文的结尾是介绍欧洲资格框架内的透明工具集，可以根据该工具评估LEC计划的不同VET。