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Press here to download the application form for the Level 1 ESF 1.31 Wood CPR: Education & Training in Wood Conservation & Restoration.

Information about the project:

The prolific extent of Malta’s material cultural heritage demands a specialized workforce to ensure that this is conserved, restored and maintained to standards established in international conventions to which Malta is signatory. Such objects and structures are found in museums, palaces and churches as well as in private collections and in private historic residences.

The €500,000 Education and Training in Wood Conservation – Restoration Project, which the Institute of Conservation and Management of Cultural Heritage within Heritage Malta is currently undertaking, 85% of which is co-financed through The European Social Fund (Cohesion Policy 2007-2013, Operational Programme II – Empowering People for More Jobs and a Better Quality of Life), improves education and skills in relation to material cultural heritage at large, and specifically in wood and furniture in the context of the European Qualifications Framework. The Project has started and the first meeting for partners has already been held.

The Education and Training in Wood Conservation – Restoration Project aims at:

• Providing the framework for education and training leading to work in the cultural heritage conservation-restoration sector with particular emphasis on wood and furniture;

• Developing and/or providing education opportunities for unskilled/to reskill employed and unemployed males and females throughout the life cycle in Malta and Gozo;

• Providing postgraduate research opportunites for specialization in science related
subjects;

• Providing resources to educators, researchers and students to attain in the above;

• Developing programmes consonant with national reforms in education;

• Developing human resources to assist the cultural heritage sector.

Other direct or indirect targets of the Project include:

• Encouraging skilled workers leaving the public or private sector to set us small
enterprises;

• Assisting skilled workers who are unemployed, owing to redundancy or early retirement to become self-employed;

• Contributing towards the environment;

• Contributing towards other industries such as the tourism industry (e.g.in terms of cultural heritage valorization and the potential benefits that can be gained from staging the historic techniques of artists and artisans in the past times’;

• Contributing towards disadvantaged groups in the Maltese and Gozitan labour force (particularly women and disabled people)

Among the deliverables of the Project are:

• Development of an EQF level 1 curriculum and syllabus in material cultural heritage
preservation skills;

• An EQF level 3 curriculum and syllabus in wood and furniture heritage skills;

• 10 runs if the EQF level 1 course in material cultural heritage preservation skills in Malta and Gozo targeting 150 participants;

• 1 run if the EQF level 3 course in wood and furniture heritage skills targeting 15
participants;

• Design of EQF level 6 curriculum and syllabus in conservation-restoration of wood and furniture leading to employable role in the sector;

• Development of EQF level 7 curriculum and syllabus in research and training in
Conservation Science applied to wood and furniture leading to employable role in the
sector;

• Provision of four (4) research and training grants at EQF level 7 to graduates to
specialize in science-related subjects;

• Access to publications including on-line journals to educators, researchers and students to attain the above;

• Valorisation products on the above including proceedings of conferences and printed material for the greater awareness of cultural heritage.