Text: Lucie Římanová
What do today’s students take away from their vocational experience? Experience, confidence, new skills – and often their first job offer. At FINIDR, we strive to offer them not only a background for learning new skills, but also a supportive environment where they can see that printing is more than just a field. It is a living craft with a future.
Year-round vocational training for juniors
In the 2024/2025 school year, we continued our long-standing partnership with Albrecht High School. Three students in the 3rd year of the Printing Machine Technician course completed a year-long vocational training with us. Thanks to their responsible approach, we offered them the opportunity to find employment. One of them has expressed interest in taking up a job, which we will address after his graduation. The other two have decided to continue their postgraduate studies.
How did they see the training?
‘I was excited to try different activities – it wasn’t just monotonous but varied and I really enjoyed it!’ ‘I was pleased to be able to try something different rather than the same thing over and over again.’
Second year students and first contact with production
Second year students from the same school came to us in two half-termly groups – nine students in total. We recommended five of them to continue their training in Year 3.
They also took away valuable experiences:
“I like that there are decent people in the production. What I didn’t understand, they explained it to me.”
“I learned things that I had no idea how they worked.”
“Lunches!” (this is also important)
Two-week internship: first taste of printing
In January and February, we set up a two-week internship for 16 Albrecht High School students of Polygraphy. The students were able to see the entire book production process, learn about the workings of the machines and the manual finishing. Some of them even got involved in simple activities directly in the production.
What did the students like the most? The quotes speak for themselves:
“Most of the staff were very nice – the ladies at the gathering, sewing and manual finishing especially.”
“I would like to commend the lady on quality, sewing and gathering. They were all very nice and helped us when we didn’t know what to do.”
“Filipinos – it is fun to work with.”
“The cutting was the most interesting.”
“Quality department practice, friendly staff and good lunches.”
New energy from electrical field
Technical disciplines also have their place in our factory. In cooperation with the Polytechnic School in Havířov and the School of Technology and Services in Karviná, we offered internships to four students of the 3rd year and one student of the 2nd year of electrical engineering. Under the guidance of our maintenance technicians, they gained real experience in repairing and maintaining production equipment. We are planning to develop our cooperation in the coming year.
Summer with a further purpose
In August, we will once again be involved in cooperation with the ADAM association, which supports children and young people with autism spectrum disorders. Not only last year’s experience showed that this makes sense – one of the temporary workers has taken up a job with us and is now employed by our manual finishing department.
Thank you for growing with us
We are happy to be part of young people’s journey to their future profession. Our thanks go to all the schools, practice guarantors, process technicians and production trainers, but most of all to the students – for their attitude, effort and energy they bring to us.
