{"id":2022,"date":"2020-04-29T13:13:46","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T11:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpethzprd.ethz.ch\/its\/?p=2022"},"modified":"2020-04-29T13:13:49","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T11:13:49","slug":"it-training-lab-it-vocational-training-at-eth-pimped-up-episode-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethz.ch\/its\/2020\/04\/29\/it-training-lab-it-vocational-training-at-eth-pimped-up-episode-1\/","title":{"rendered":"IT Training Lab – «IT vocational training at ETH» – pimped up, Episode 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ETH is an important pillar in IT education in Switzerland. Every year, about seven out of 170 trainees enter a career in modern technology. Training at ETH is highly regarded and its graduates are excellently educated. But to whom or what is ETH’s success due? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Apart from experienced teachers and a great deal of experience in the education of trainees, the IT Training Lab has for several years played a crucial role in maintaining the quality of vocational training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfamiliar with the Training Lab? <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The «IT Training Lab» is a training centre at the H\u00f6nggerberg campus designed to offer IT trainees a pleasant vocational setting and provide them with optimal support on their path into the working world. Trainees can learn the basics of IT for a year in premises specially designed for this and in particular IT at ETH under the supervision of Marc Winkler (ITS PPF) and Martin Schneider (ITS PPF). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
The location of the IT Training Lab: The building HPC, which was built in 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The training lab has now been a part of the\nETH training infrastructure for four years and has become one of its permanent\nfeatures. the first class to be completely trained in the training lab will\ngraduate this year. This is a perfect opportunity to return to the origins of\nthe training lab and take a look at its development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How an\nidea became an innovation<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The idea of the training lab arose in\n2014\/2015 in HR, to be precise, with Dieter Schorno, who at the time was ETH’s\nvocational training director. It was then implemented together with the\nemployees of the IT Services and the departments[2]<\/sup> . I spoke\nto Fabio Consani find out more about the origins. He is not only the mainstay\nof ITSM (IT Service Management[3]<\/sup>) , but also led the team that\nwas intended to realise this idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up to this time, IT trainees used to be\nassigned a mentor with whom they then spent their entire working and training\ntime. Contact with other trainees was restricted here in most cases to a few\ninterdepartmental occasions. There were no uniform or only minimally\ncoordinated guidelines in the syllabus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fabio Consani had already been asked in\n2002 if he would also be interested in training adolescents. He was offered a\nbigger office as an incentive. Thinking of this «incentive» today\nstill occasionally prompts a wry grin on the part of Fabio, since this promise\nwas never actually realised. But he still accepted the offer and subsequently\nalways trained two trainees at intervals of two years. Consequently, he was not\nrewarded with a new office, but with the realisation: working with the young\nadults was fun! He then invested additional effort in what was actually his own\nsyllabus in order to introduce more structure into the training. He also\nensured that the trainees were able to network and get to know each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When duty calls<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although imparting knowledge to young\npeople and tracking their progress was fun, vocational training moved to the\nback burner for Fabio when the new PPF division was set up and he had to focus\nhis attention on its development and organisation to an increased extent.\nThereafter, he no longer educated any new trainees, but his passion for\neducation remained and continued to occupy him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, over the years, voices within the\nETH’s IT vocational training could be heard with increasing frequency,\nexpressing dissatisfaction with the entire training process. One problem, for\nexample, was that ETH normally recruited IT trainees from the basic training\nyear of the ZLI<\/a> RAU<\/a>. This was actually intended to\nmake the work of the vocational trainers easier, since the trainees from the\nbasic training year were one year older and had some experience. But this basic\ntraining increasingly failed to achieve what it was supposed to, since it was\ndesigned more for SMEs. But since ETH as a university requires a different,\nabove all wider, basic education, the more time spent on such preparation no\nlonger offered any major advantage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing ventured, nothing gained<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Against this background, Dieter Schorno\nissued an invitation on 10 April 2015 to: «First meeting – IT training lab\nconcept» A structured, carefully planned training centre to remedy the\nproblems in basic training. This first meeting became a project for which\nhe put together a team with interested parties both from IT Services as well as\nfrom the departments (see above).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A daring step, given that the project had not been approved «at the top». But a fortunate coincidence provided them with indirect support: in an interview in the Tagesanzeiger, the then ETH Council President Fritz Schiesser made a statement on financial cuts[4]<\/sup>. Among other things, he stated that cuts could being made everywhere, except in vocational training: «For us there are no taboos – except when it comes to the education of the 500 trainees. If we really want to have funds for investments, we won’t be able to avoid difficult decisions.»<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A good framework for their proposal. And by\ncoincidence, their timing was even better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

«In management, you can make plans\nfor everything and do everything thing right. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one thing you can’t\ncontrol – time.»<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all the planning on how the training\nlab was to be set up and work, they naturally also still needed premises, which\nare not so easy to find at ETH. Many rooms were already oversubscribed and if\nanything became available, there was a long queue of interested parties.\nDespite all these factors, the «training lab team» was relatively\nlate in contacting the property management, quite simply because they wanted to\nbe able to present an order approved in advance by the executive board. It\nsubsequently turned out that this was a wise decision, because otherwise they\nmight not have got the premises. In addition, once they had an appointment with\nthe portfolio managers of the properties, a new building opened on the\nH\u00f6nggerberg campus in which they were able to take over some offices directly.\nIf they had come forward earlier, who knows if they would have been equally\nfortunate… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Floor
Floor plan of the premises on the H\u00f6nggerberg campus<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"The
The HPC building provides plenty of space for the training lab.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now they had everything: a plan, rooms and\na team to back it all up. Fabio Consani’s conclusion: this was an extremely\nmotivating project from start to finish!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From here, Fabio once again withdrew to the\nside-lines and left the further implementation to others. The IT Training Lab\ngot its first employees, its first trainees and much more. In the next post, we\ntake a closer look at the next momentous step: how did the story continue?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Text by Kaja Walter and Francine Tobler, PR & Communication of IT Services<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Links<\/h2>\n\n\n\n