Kuressaare Ametikool
Kuressaare Ametikool (KAK) is a regional training centre of vocational education with 113 staff members (including 57 teachers). The school was founded on November 6th, 1922. KAK provides initial and additional vocational training and also retraining in 12 different vocational areas, such as, tourism, hospitality service, catering, business management, social work, information technology, handicraft and design, beauty services (hairdressers and spa therapists), car technicians, construction, small vessel building (boat building), carpentry. There are 676 regular students on upper and post-secondary level, but also ca 800 adult students during a year participating in various adult training courses. We also provide courses for people with special needs. KAK has lately renewed the development plan of school and all vocational departments according to the need of labour market and LLP Strategy. The mission of KAK is to prepare people who would be competitive on the labour market and capable of coping with their lives.
Our motivation is to enrich the curriculum with extra-curricular activities, to develop IT, English and communication competences of all participants, to broaden European awareness. The key people will be the Erasmus+ school team whose experience will contribute to the successful work of the project.They are language, IT, history, mathematics, specialist teachers and also group teachers. KAK is implementing quality management principles and has taken part in Quality Award competitions for VET institutions in Estonia. Since 2011 KAK has been involved in quality assurance program of Estonian VET institutions, all 12 curriculum groups (vocational areas) are fully accredited.
Kuressaare Ametikool has participated in different international projects as coordinator or partner since 1998. KAK sends and hosts staff and students on work placement and arranges study visits funded by LLP (earlier Leonardo, Comenius, and now Erasmus+) and other programs. International cooperation not only broadens the horizon of learners but also enlarges their competence and self-confidence. All of our staff has broad experience in the organization of international exchange projects. This includes good knowledge of the various European programs, professional language skills and a high level of intercultural competence. KAK is a member of European Association of Hotel and Tourism Schools (AEHT). In October 2008 KAK hosted 21st AEHT annual conference in Kuressaare. There were 664 participants from 31 countries. An international competition "Culinary Art in Kuressaare" has taken place since 2010. Every April, for the last two years, an Irish week was organised by the business department. Since September 2016 KAK has been an owner of the Erasmus+ VET Mobility Charter. In November 2018, on the European Vocational Skills Week in Vienna, KAK was given the award of The Entrepreneurial School of 2019.