The College of Logistics is the only institution in Poland that implements an original program of cooperation with secondary and post-secondary schools educating in the professions of logistics technician and freight forwarding technician. The WSL has over 200 partner schools and nearly 400 teachers.
A few years ago, the university came to the aid of those teachers who were almost overnight obliged to teach logistics subjects previously unknown to them. There were no textbooks or teaching aids on the market. Consequently, the College of Logistics launched postgraduate studies for teachers. The university’s lecturers, together with employees of the Institute of Logistics and Warehousing, wrote textbooks for students and regularly help in gathering materials useful for conducting classes, and thanks to partnership agreements with leading companies in the country, the Poznań-based university provides an opportunity to see logistics in practice.
In the last academic year alone, 40 upper-secondary schools educating in the professions of logistics technician and freight forwarding technician visited the WSL. This involved over 1400 students and nearly 100 teachers. During their stay at the College of Logistics, students participate in lectures on logistics topics, visit the National RFID Laboratory, and one of the companies cooperating with the university.
There is also an internet portal http://www.szkolysrednie.wsl.com.pl/ which serves as a platform for exchanging information between teachers. The portal is regularly updated with teaching materials obtained from partner companies.
As part of the program, the WSL has also been organizing the Teachers’ Forum for five years. The conference is not only an annual summary of the assistance that the WSL offers to teachers educating in the professions of logistics technician and freight forwarding technician, but it also aims to improve logistics education in upper-secondary schools. During one of the workshops, the flaws in the curriculum for logistics technician and freight forwarding technician professions were identified, which led to work on changes to the core curriculum at the Ministry of National Education.
The National Logistics Olympiad is another project created by the College of Logistics for upper-secondary school students. In the 2011/2012 academic year, the fourth edition of the competition will take place, which aims not only to spark interest in logistics among young people but also to help evaluate the curriculum in secondary and post-secondary schools. Every year, the number of participants doubles. In the first edition, 1835 students from all over Poland took part, while in the last one, over 4600 people participated.
The next step for the WSL was to connect business practice with schools in order to align mutual expectations. The project “Greater Poland must know – partnership between vocational education and the labor market as a key to increasing the attractiveness of the logistics technician and freight forwarding technician professions in the Greater Poland Voivodeship” was established. The project, co-financed by the European Union under the European Social Fund, assumes the creation of a communication platform in the Greater Poland Voivodeship between schools providing education in TSL industry professions and the labor market, which reports the need to hire graduates of these specialties. After the project is completed, the activities are to be extended to the entire country.
Also, under the European Social Fund, the project “Virtual laboratories – the success of innovation” is being implemented. The goal of the project is to create an innovative method of education using advanced information and communication technologies in conducting vocational laboratories in upper-secondary schools (Virtual Laboratories). The project is being implemented throughout the country.