Today, the most international edition of this Fira de Barcelona event has closed its doors
Medicine, dentistry and engineering, the studies most in demand at the Education Fair
Today, at midday, the Education Fair closed its doors. The new dual Vocational Training and courses on health, hotel and catering, IT and community services have been the focus of the majority of consultations by young people. With regard to university courses, medicine, dentistry and the different branches of engineering have been the stars of the show, marked by the growing internationalisation of studies in response to a globalising job market.
“The job market is increasingly international and, year after year, we see how courses offered are adapting to this new context: not only are the disciplines available to students growing but specialisation in studies and materials is increasing. At a time of uncertainty, parents and pupils want to get it right and choose the best option for starting their professional career”, said Roser Soley, Director of the show.
The first-time participation of thirteen Chinese universities in the show has been one of the highlights this year. According to Cheng Jiacai, the Director of the Service for Scholarly Exchange, Ministry of Education, over 3,000 students passed by their stands and showed great interest in international business, economy and engineering studies, as well as Chinese language and culture.
Jiacai said “We are impressed by the high level of Spanish universities, not just for their technical education but also for their great creative and imaginative capacity”. Jiacai also expressed his conviction that “exchange and cooperation with China in matters of education will increase significantly in the next few years”.
Jiacai was accompanied by the President of the Northeast Forestry University, Yan Chuanping; the Vice President of Guangxi Medical University, Tang Anzhou; the Vice President of Harbin Engineering University, Wei Lin; the Vice President of Capital Normal University, He Yikun; and the Vice President of Liaoning Medical University, Qin Shujian, among over 40 high-ranking academics.
At the Masters and Post-Graduate Studies Fair, Futura, universities, business schools, centres for continuing education and professional colleges presented, until Saturday, the latest programmes offered in Spain and abroad. Along general lines, visitors were mainly interested in studies of biomedicine, telecommunications, engineering, education and health sciences.
Training and job seeking
This year, Futura hosted a packed programme of conferences and workshops to reveal the latest trends of the national and international job market. In line with this, the show again organised the Employment Forum with the collaboration of Barcelona Activa.
According to Pilar Dueso from the Economy, Enterprise and Employment Area of this organisation “many of the visitors to our stand were young students in their last year of studies, who were asking for information about the possibility of combining a future academic specialisation with an active job search”. The informative sessions that took place at Futura were very well attended, such as the InjoJobs one on seeking employment abroad, in which around a hundred people participated.
Over 65.000 students, relatives and teachers have visited the Education Show and 5,000 people visited Futura. The two shows form part of Vocational Training and Employment Week, which, in total, brought together over 70,000 visitors and 215 exhibitors.
Barcelona, 17th March 2013