This year, the Training Center of BMW Group Plant Debrecen, equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure and ceremoniously opened at the end of October, hosts the Automotive Open Day for students, as well as their parents and teachers.
Organised by the Debrecen Vocational Training Center (DSzC) and BMW Group Plant Debrecen, the programme allows participants to learn about dual apprenticeship training opportunities and career paths offered by the Debrecen factory. The two-day event also provides participants an insight into the future operations of this plant representing a milestone in the life of the BMW Group, which will introduce a new era of personal mobility when it opens in 2025.
BMW Group Plant Debrecen’s dual vocational training programme started in September this year with one hundred apprentices. The extremely popular programme, for which there were twice as many applicants as available places already in the first year, offers students the knowledge that can serve as the basis of lifelong career. The Automotive Open Day is held in the 6,500-sq.m Training Center, where vocational school students, i.e. the prospective apprentices in the dual programme, could find out about the available opportunities.
In the framework of the dual apprenticeship programme, students learn the professions of mechatronics technician, electronics technician, automotive mechatronics technician and IT systems and applications technician, in classrooms equipped with state-of-the-art educational facilities and in a high-tech production environment. Upon successful completion of the three-year training, students will be offered jobs with BMW Manufacturing Hungary Kft.
On the Automotive Open Day, the training unit and workshops are open to primary and secondary school students, as well as their parents and teachers. Visitors have the opportunity to meet students who are already enrolled in the programme, hear about their experiences and try out the tools together, while being informed about the possible career paths offered by BMW Group Plant Debrecen.
At the press conference, Johannes Trauth, Vice President HR at BMW Group Plant Debrecen, praised the excellent cooperation with local educational institutions and underlined that the Training Center is a special building for several reasons, as it is a bridge between the Debrecen plant and the local community. “It is important for us to be good neighbours, and the Debrecen community is important for us. In our Training Center, we want to train the young people who are our future, and because we believe that lifelong learning is important, we are also constantly focusing on training our associates,” Trauth added.
“It is hard to decide at the age of 13 or 14 what one really wants to do for the rest of his or her life, and so it is important to gain experiences, to have a sense of what the future holds for someone. At BMW’s Training Center, everything is in place to make the right decisions,” said Mayor László Papp, who added that young people mean the future of Debrecen.
Zsolt Tirpák, Chancellor of the Debrecen Vocational Training Center, said: “The Training Center will provide young people with an innovative, future-oriented learning environment and technology-- and later a working environment of the same characteristics. We have succeeded in showing young people that vocational training is not an inferior type of training, but a great opportunity. As a result of the joint work we started with BMW in 2018, the number of apprentices at several of our institutions has doubled.”
The 4th Automotive Open Day is another successful milestone in the life of BMW Group Plant Debrecen.
