The European Paint industry and the ITECH High School in Lyon, France, have joined forces to get more academic students interested to work in the paint industry. They launched the first English Master course for Paint Chemist in the premises of ITECH High School in Lyon, France. The course was launched on 30 September 2014.
Nine students were selected on the basis of their curriculum and a short video where they presented themselves and explained their motivation to start a career in the coatings industry.
Jérôme Marcilloux, Director of ITECH opened the ceremony with these words: "This is an important step forward for the coatings industry and our school".
Jacques Menicucci, President of CEPE and CEO of Allios, explained how vast the paint industry is, with over 100.000 jobs in Europe. This industry offers numerous career opportunities based on a good technical know-how of paints. And this is exactly what the proposed programme offers.
Seven member companies of CEPE agreed to fund this first group of students and offered them to carry on their internship periods in one of their laboratories (being AkzoNobel, Allios, BASF, Beckers, Blanchon, Helios and PPG).
"For the years to come our industry is in high demand for graduates who could be quickly productive for the company. I am convinced that this unique initiative will be beneficial both for the future graduates who are sure to find a job very quickly and for industry who will year after year fill the gap between offer and demand", declared Louis Philippe Reynaud, President of ITECH and Managing Director of Blanchon.
Since many years, ITECH High School has a dedicated 3 year Master course for paint engineering in French. It was therefore quite logical to select this place to propose a programme in English.
The future of all involved students looks quite bright. Indeed, they are all expected when graduated to have a job within six months.
"Today's ceremony is the end-point of our first campaign to get our industry moving on this apparent talent shortage", said Jan van der Meulen, Managing director CEPE.
"CEPE and the National Associations will make their members aware of the great value the graduates coming from this paint curriculum could bring to their future vacancies".
For further information: www.cepe.org
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CEPE is the European Council of the Paint, Printing Ink and Artist' Colours industry and represent some 800 paint companies, 75 printing ink companies and about 20 artists' colours companies. With some 110.000 people directly employed, CEPE represents around 85% of the market value.
The "Institut Textile et Chimique de Lyon, ITECH, was founded over a century ago and is a merge of the textile, the leather and the chemistry schools. ITECH-Lyon trains engineers in plastics, textiles, composites and chemistry by examining paints, inks, adhesives, cosmetics, leather and their uses (footwear, leather goods). With associative status, ITECH-Lyon is a Grande Ecole created and backed by professional unions and companies.