The kick-off meeting of the CORE- Cooking for the future project took place in Espoo, Finland on the 4th and 5th of March 2019.
There were 17 representatives from all the five partner organizations involved and also one representative from one associated partner organization, the Finnish National Agency for Education was present at the meeting on Monday.
Figure 1 . The first day of the meeting in Kirkkokatu, Omnia
The meeting itself took place in the Kirkkokatu and Lakelankatu units of Omnia. This was an important step in the project implementation, and enabled partners to meet in person for the first time.
Kick off meeting in Omnia
The event itself was initiated by Mrs Maija Aaltola, Principal of Omnia, who presented Finnish education system and also introduced Vocational Education in Omnia. After that we had a moment to get to know our new partners (Omnia, VAMIA, Ikaslan, ITT and TKHK).
At this meeting Omnia presented Project management plan (WP1), and then the partners discussed the plan. Overall topics covered were:
Topics covered on Monday 4th March
- CORE in a nutshell
- Administrational and management issues
- Quality issues
- Evaluation issues
- Dissemination issues
- Future meetings
Topics covered on Tuesday 5th March
- Web page and project Google Drive
- Guild school model
- Cooking competition
- Pop-up restaurant
- Background research issues
- Guidelines and recommendations
The main objective of the meeting was presented by the coordinator of the project.
Figure 2 . The second day of the meeting in Lakelankatu, Omnia
Common dinner on Monday evening
The meeting included a common dinner at restaurant Ateljé Finne in Helsinki on Monday evening.
Ateljé Finne is in Helsinki in Arkadiankatu. The restaurant is located next to the Rock Church that often leads tourists to dine there.
The name of the restaurant dates back to the sculptor Gunnar Finné (1886 – 1952), who once held the same room at Atelier. Since the 1960s, the restaurant Ateljé Finne has been at this address.
Tuesday’s lunch in pop-up restaurant Kokkikilta
We had the chance to experience an actual pop-up restaurant in one of the kitchens in Lakelankatu unit. During the lunch we were offered Whitefish and beetroot carpaccio as a starter and Liver with mashed potatoes, fried onions and lingonberry as a main course and Chocolate financier and bavarois as a dessert.
The students who were responsible for making and serving the lunch belong to the group of students who are being coached for competitions.
Figure 3 . Dream team
The purpose of the project
The world around us is changing rapidly, and education, too, must evolve to meet the needs of the future. The purpose of the Cooking for the future project is to develop cooperation between VET schools and working life in European countries in the restaurant and catering sector. The idea is to find out what can be done to promote employment and professional skills and competences in different European countries.
Project focuses on making improvements on the existing qualifications by identifying them in partner countries, improving them and matching a new joint curriculum. The project priorities are to make skills and competences more visible and comparable between different European countries.
The primary target groups are students and teachers in VET as well as company representatives in the catering sector. The companies are involved on local, regional, national, and transnational levels.
The project is focused on developing a pilot version of a new virtual 360° web page featuring cook’s competences, where all study programmes / specializations are opened. The learning outcomes will be made as transparent as possible by using OER (Open Educational Resources, e.g. open badges) approach for competences needed in the profession.
To any future employer, CORE project’s open badges will show a determined approach to the goals and commitment to achieve them. These are important appearances that employers also value in future.
As a result of the project there will be new international training modules for catering field. The quality of the vocational qualifications’ contents will be improved, and the international aspect of the modules makes them more attractive for all our students.
The project is developing cooperation between vocational culinary schools and colleges and working life in the field of restaurant and catering mainly in Finland, Spain, Ireland and Estonia. The project is co‐funded by the European Commission’s Erasmus+ programme under the action KA3 Joint Qualifications in Vocational Education and Training. The project partners are Omnia and Vamia from Finland, Ikaslan from Spain, ITT (Institute of Technology Tralee) from Ireland and TKHK (Tartu Kutsehariduskeskus) from Estonia.
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Oona Haapakorpi, Omnia