Visit of our school students in Austria

These excursions are organized by EC ČB within the framework of the Foreign Cooperation of Schools project. The excursion was attended by a total of 25 second-year students of the electrical engineering field. The visit to HTL Wels was very inspiring and interesting for us. HTL Wels is a vocational school with a total of about 1700 students and 180 teachers. The school teaches several disciplines - electrical engineering, information technology, mechanical engineering, mechatronics and chemistry. The longest period of study is 5 years. The school focuses on theoretical teaching as well as practical training in the various fields. The orientation of the school is very similar to our school. Upon arrival we were very warmly welcomed by Mr. Mag. Spökrer and then by the headmaster Mr. DI Schachl.

The students of the school presented the school and the individual fields of study in a short presentation in German with translation into Czech.

At the same time, our students presented our school using Power Point software, which they prepared in English.

After the mutual introduction of the two schools, a tour of the classrooms and laboratories followed. We were impressed by the excellent technical equipment in the classrooms. The advantage is that each student has technical equipment and can work independently. The high financial requirements for the equipment are covered by the sponsors. The school has a total of about 80 active sponsors from different disciplines. Here are some of them.

The school pays great attention to practical graduation work.

Despite the better technical equipment of the school, the comparison of the tasks showed that the topics in the lessons are almost identical. For example, in the Automation subject we do an identical task of sorting parts by material type.

A big advantage of the school is the ample space and thus the size of the classrooms.

Each workplace is fully equipped with measuring technology. Students can work independently and solve assignments individually. It is not necessary to work in groups, as in our case, where we do not have enough technical equipment. Of course, the equipment does not say anything about the quality of teaching, but it certainly helps to get to know the technology in practice in more detail. The education system in our country does not allow us to achieve such quality equipment, but we still educate specialists who already occupy top places in various competitions and are well placed for university studies. At the end of the visit we invited the representatives of the school to visit us and we hope that they will accept our invitation and we will meet again in our school. Our aim is to use the meeting to establish closer cooperation between the schools. The exchange of students from both schools would be a great benefit. It is a first contact that must be deepened.

In the afternoon we visited the Fronius production plant in Satteldt. This company manufactures welding equipment, charging equipment and solar inverters. The visit to Fronius was also very interesting. We saw excellent modern production based on Japanese production management systems. The only downside for our students was that we could not get closer to the direct production area and look under the hands of the workers. But of course we understand that this is not possible. The lecture on electricity generation and conservation was also very interesting. How Fronius deals with the provision of energy for its own use is an example for all companies. The 615 kWp solar power plant on the roof of the production hall is a good example of how to approach the energy problem.

In addition to the solar power plant, we also had the opportunity to see the so-called Energy Cell that the company produces. It is a device that produces electricity directly from hydrogen. At the moment, it is still expensive to produce electricity in this way, but development is continuing and perhaps this is the direction in which the use of renewable sources will go.

The excursion to the school and the production plant in Austria was a great help for the students to gain an overview of education abroad and modern manufacturing companies. We should continue this activity and show the students new things and possibilities that they may encounter in practice. It is positive when they see a number of topics that are only taught in theory at school having practical application.

The last picture shows the participants of the excursion in front of the Fronius production plant.

Ing. Václav Jilek. MBA