CPIFP Bajo Aragón (Centre Public Integrated of Vocational Training) is an educational centre for Vocational Training placed in Alcañiz (Teruel) a very rural area of Northern Spain. It is the main provider for VET and Adult education in the region but is also located on a complex of schools and works closely with the Primary and Secondary schools on the same campus, sharing the vocational curriculum with the Secondary school.

We have studies in 5 fields: Car Mechanics, Electricity, Health Care, IT and Administration. We have a staff of around 40-50 teachers, and now we have around 300-350 regular students and more or less other 60 unemployed students in the Vocational sector.

The intake of students is very mixed, and in recent year has seen an influx of young adult migrants, some of whom do not speak the language. We cater for basic skill training for these students. Most of our migrant students are between 16 and 25 years old and their main country of origin is Morocco, but we also have students coming from Romania.

Our Centre is located in Alcañiz, a small town of around 15.000 habitants. Alcañiz is the main town in an area of 60km around. The population of influence of our Centre is 60.000 habitants. CPIFP Bajo Aragón is the most important Vocational Training Centre in this area. It is accredited as a Higher Education and a teacher training institution. It has established a system of school based mentors to support trainee teachers.  Alcañiz belongs to Teruel province, and to the Aragón region. Zaragoza is the capital of Aragón. Zaragoza is located 100 km away from Alcañiz.

CPIFP Bajo Aragón has participated in European Mobility Projects for students and teachers since 2007. Students of our Centre have carried out work practice experience in companies in countries as: United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Italy, Sweden, Czech Republic, Germany and Bulgaria. In the last years we have had European Mobility Projects Erasmus+ for Higher Education students and for Vocational Training students.

We have specific experience of teacher training as we host trainees as part of our role as a teaching school. As we are a complex of schools, we train teachers across different sectors, primary, secondary, vocational and higher. For this project we will have two different target groups. In one hand, students coming to us to train to be teachers and on the other hand current teachers who will be undertaking professional development to become school based mentors.

The key personnel involved will be Javier Arenzana, a trained teacher involved in the Erasmus+ projects in the school and head of studies, and Ana T. Rodriguez who is in charge of the management of trainee teachers and coordinates the Erasmus+ in the school. She is also the English Department Head and was recently appointed by the General Directorate as member of the New Didactic Methologies Research body for the region.

Link: https://cpifpbajoaragon.com/