It is difficult for the teachers at the IES Valle del Cidacos de Calahorra to miss work due to a car failure, after the students of the Intermediate Degree in Electromechanics dedicate part of their practices at the institute to checking their vehicles. Are … the 15 students and one student from the first year of this vocational training cycle who put a thousand eyes on the engines and other parts of the teachers’ cars in order to detect possible problems.
It is a way to put into practice the knowledge learned, but above all to “acquire responsibility for their work,” highlights Ángel Zabala, the ‘engine teacher’. “I leave them a sheet and they check the systems that we see in the modules,” explains this teacher, for whom “it is important to insist that they have to work well, because cars are driven by people and a wheel in poor condition can cause an accident.” However, nothing happens without his supervision and “if they have any questions, they ask me,” he says.
Throughout this course, some 25 teachers have trusted this group of kids to check their vehicles. “They feel professional and then they even stop you in the yard to ask you if you have already aligned the wheels,” says Inma Nájera, a teacher of Training and Career Guidance, who has made her car available to the students, laughing.
The initiative also allows students to work with a wide variety of models and brands, “and not just with the three we have in class,” says Ángel Zabala. Tires, lights, underbody, shock absorbers… Everything is checked without wanting to enter into competition with automotive workshops. «Nothing is dismantled. The only goal is for the kids to identify the problems and then for the car owner to go to the workshop,” Zabala clarifies.
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Maite Santiago, first prize
Maite Santiago Medrano also stands out in this class of future mechanics. She does it not only because she is the only woman in the workshop, but also because she was the absolute winner of the ‘Choose Quality, Choose Confidence’ Campus, in which the IES Valle del Cidacos has participated. But the center has also won 9 of the 10 awards from this initiative at the national level, promoted by the main automobile component manufacturers. The campus evaluated the participants, from a dozen vocational training institutes, on a syllabus that was provided to them. With the scores, a ranking was created that motivated Maite to overcome each phase with the best results. «Since we started the tests my grades have also gone up. I told myself that I could do more. So I studied more and it has been reflected,” says this young woman who is happy to break clichés to train in a sector traditionally for men. “We have few girls, but in the last two years they have been the best,” says Javier Ruiz, head of department.
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