When the first-year apprentices bustled into the training shop at MTU Aero Engines in Munich last fall, they were surprised to be joined by two trainers: Milan Lukic, 26, and Marko Matovic, 28, introduced themselves to the group as instructors from the Technical School in Stara Pazova, the town near Belgrade where MTU is setting up its new repair facility, MTU Maintenance Serbia.
The two young and highly motivated instructors spent four months learning how MTU provides successful hands-on training to its new apprentices. They are part of a “train the trainer” scheme that aims to spread the philosophy of the popular German dual-track training system, which combines an apprenticeship in a company with vocational learning. “This approach is essential to giving people the fundamental technical knowledge and skills they need to work in a high-tech industry like aviation,” says Johann Triebenbacher, who heads up the Training Center Serbia and On-the-Job Training subprojects at MTU.
Dual-track training of skilled workers gets underway
In 2019, MTU and the government of the Republic of Serbia signed a declaration of cooperation in which they agreed to work together closely on a dual-track training system for skilled workers. This agreement aims to ensure that the curricula used by vocational schools meet the specific requirements of the aviation industry. “The train-the-trainer program provides the basis we need to get hands-on training underway in Stara Pazova,” says MTU trainer Johannes Lapperger, who is in charge of the program. Step by step, Lukic and Matovic learned all the different aspects of their new role as trainers; they also acquired new skills in operating the machines in the training shop, and successfully created their own training plans in German—an impressive feat. “Everything else was communicated in English, which worked perfectly,” Lapperger says.
Top-class training requires cutting-edge equipment. Fortunately, the vocational school in Stara Pazova is currently being kitted out with a modern training shop, which will include various machine tools from MTU Maintenance Serbia. “We’re setting up 16 training places there, which will include turning and milling machines, lathes and tools,” Triebenbacher says enthusiastically. It’s hard to imagine a better environment to provide hands-on training to the next generation of MTU engineers. A total of 12 budding machinists and industrial mechanics specializing in welding technology began the theoretical part of their course in Stara Pazova last September as part of the first year of their dual-track program.
