At the end of the current school year, 53 school classes from the Peine district, but also from other regional authorities in southeastern Lower Saxony, will have visited the SKZ Lab at the Peine site.

The SKZ-Lab in Peine is a practical career orientation and popular with students. (Photo: SKZ, Luca Hoffmannbeck)

At the end of the funding period, the focus is now on the continuation of the project

Due to the Corona crisis, the project duration of the SKZ Lab was extended from two to three and a half years. During this time, 53 Lab days were successfully carried out. 53 school classes from the South-East Lower Saxony region, mainly from the Peine district, and thus almost 1,300 students, had the opportunity to gain practical experience of the work processes in a company. "We were also able to give the young people a differentiated view of plastics. Plastics are not just packaging waste, but are useful and irreplaceable, particularly in the automotive or medical sectors," says project manager Annette von Hörsten. The feedback from the participating schools, the students and also from politics and industry has been consistently positive. The SKZ Lab is perceived as practical career orientation and is very popular.

At the end of the funding period, the focus of work at the SKZ is now on making the project permanent, so that in the future, too, students in the career development phase will have the opportunity to get to know every day working life and thus the division of labor in a manufacturing company. "The beginning has been made - we have already been able to win some supporters for our project. Companies that are interested in presenting their apprenticeships and/or dual study programs on individual Lab days can make an important contribution as sponsors here and at the same time actively recruit young talent with us," von Hörsten continues. Interested companies that would like to actively support the SKZ Lab and recruit potential apprentices will be gladly advised in a personal meeting.

Students run their own injection molding company
The SKZ Lab simulates a day in an injection molding company, with a school class running its own company. To do this, the students independently divide themselves into six teams or departments: Team Finance, Team Design, Team Research, Team Production, Team Communication and the Team Sustainability. The task is to work together to manage a company, manufacture a product, calculate the costs and promote it. The students have to give their company and product a powerful name and successfully launch it on the market with an advertising film.

Of particular note: The product is an eraser. Pelikan, a company based in Peine, has provided the SKZ with an injection molding tool designed for this purpose. The project is intended to give young people in the career identification phase an orientation aid, not only with regard to technical professions and courses of study in the plastics industry, but also to enable them to experience everyday life in typical office professions, such as purchasing, sales, advertising, marketing and design. On individual Lab days, companies from the region had the opportunity to present their companies or apprenticeships, while the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences in Wolfsburg and the Clausthal University of Technology presented relevant courses of study. In the course of the funding period, the project has grown far beyond the plastics industry in this context - Peiner Träger GmbH also presented its relevant apprenticeship occupations on a total of six days. The SKZ-Lab is thus an important contribution to securing the skilled workforce of tomorrow and thus an important joint task of politics and industry.

The project was carried out within the framework of the funding guideline "Support for Regional Skilled Worker Alliances - Structural Measures" and was funded by the European Social Fund (ESF). Close cooperation with the Alliance for the Region and the regional employment agencies within the framework of existing career orientation programs throughout the project's duration made a decisive contribution to its success.