First Meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee of the RCF Held in Montenegro

The First Meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Regional Challenge Fund in Western Balkans 6 was held June 16-18 in Budva, Montenegro.

Apart from the RCF Fund Management Unit, the meeting gathered VET experts from CIF member chambers and KfW offices from around the region.

The introductory statements were delivered by CIF Project Coordinator promoting the Technical Advisory Committee as a working group for VET and RCF Fund Management Unit analyzing the ways RCF can promote exchange on cooperative training and contribute to policy dialogue.

The first day of the meeting was also dedicated to the updates on the RCF’s ongoing activities such as the status of the projects awarded in the First Call and the Second Call selection process status, as well as the next steps of the development of the full application forms and the selection.

As the change is the only constant, the RCF is continuously looking for ways to harness the feedback into the best possible solutions and consortia experience enhancement.

The second day was dedicated to sharing the lessons learned from the enterprises’ experience in cooperative training applications. The RCF analyzed the survey conducted among the enterprises that supported the consortia and discussed the benefits and challenges perceived by the businesses in the region as well as the quality of the cooperative training programmes.

A major finding in the survey, created by the RCF for the enterprises supporting the consortia to share their overall application experience, showed that 69.8% of companies consider skilled employees ready to be involved in the processes as the main benefit of the RCF programme. On the other hand, 61.1% of the companies fear that one of the challenges can be poaching, that is students leaving for other job opportunities. 

More details on the survey will be available soon.