Ungheni’s vocational school — the only institution of its kind in the district, with 538 students — has announced that it has been selected among the 13 institutions in the country included in CONSEPT 6, a programme to modernise technical and vocational education funded by Liechtenstein. The school made the announcement on its Facebook page.
What CONSEPT is
CONSEPT — “Strengthening the Technical and Vocational Education System of Moldova” — is in the sixth edition of a programme launched in 2008. It is funded by the Liechtenstein Development Service (LED), which has operated in Moldova since 2007 and has invested more than 8.5 million euros in earlier phases, and it is implemented by the “Education for Development” public association (AED).
The new phase was launched on 18 June 2026 and runs until the end of 2029. Nationally, the beneficiaries are 13 education institutions — 11 vocational schools and two centres of excellence.
What the sixth edition brings
Compared with earlier editions, CONSEPT 6 keeps the classic lines — training teachers and managers, updating curricula, modernising laboratories and learning spaces, closer links with employers — and adds two new directions: psycho-emotional support and student motivation, through training for teachers and psychologists, and connecting general-education subjects such as mathematics or physics to the trades being taught.
We have outlined several fields of vocational training: energy and electrical engineering, motor vehicles… Other fields we combined: the construction sector with metalworking, and processing with HoReCa services.
Aurelia Vartic, manager of the CONSEPT 6 project, „Education for Development” association
What the school stands to gain
For Ungheni, the stake lies with the 538 students and the teachers of the district’s only vocational school, which trains nine trades, from welding, electricity and car mechanics to garment-making in the dual system. A four-year, externally funded programme means a stable framework for equipping the workshops and training teachers — relevant in a town with a Free Economic Zone where demand for qualified workers is constant. The students’ interest in trades was also visible at the Trades Caravan in June.
For now, exactly what the Ungheni school receives under the programme — which laboratories, which trades, how many teachers — has not been detailed publicly. The official list of the 13 institutions was not published at the time of this article, and Ungheni’s inclusion rests on the school’s own announcement; it had already been a beneficiary of the previous edition, CONSEPT V.