For the past five years, HydX has been involved with year four engineering at a local Ystad high school. During the course of one year there, a maximum of twelve students are given the opportunity to study Design and Product Development including a valuable internship, offering students the chance to develop the kind of skills required for a job in the technology industry. 

On completing the course, students will become high school engineering graduates and very well prepared for their working lives ahead. 

- For us as a company, this is a good opportunity since we get to network with other companies, influence the course structure and also, we get the opportunity to meet the stars of the future, says Mattias Salomonsson, who is responsible for the project at HydX. 

Specialised education provides invaluable knowledge 

It has been a successful venture and in 2019, trainee Anton Mårtensson was hired immediately following his graduation. 

- For me personally, it was the practical training and being afforded the opportunity to feel if this was a job that suited me, which I really appreciated. There was practical work throughout the year, at both the internship placement and the school. During the practicals, I got to work on real projects that HydX had adapted for me, explains Anton Mårtensson. 

- For me as a student, it felt brilliant to be able to team up with a company and show them who I was. I was able to acquire knowledge that proved invaluable when I sat my finals and shortly thereafter, I was even offered a job! 

 A win-win for the student, the company and the region 

The technology programme’s year four is aimed directly at students studying technology and they have eleven weeks of internship during the year, three during the autumn and eight in the spring. 

- For us, it is an opportunity to encourage young technology talents in the local area. It is difficult to find employees with the right combination of skills in our field of technology and hydraulics, explains Mattias Salomonsson. 

Already in the first year of the three-year technical high school education, HydX and the other sponsoring companies are involved in the course. The companies also have the opportunity to influence the fourth year in consultation with the school, and the investment has been a great success. 

While several schools around Sweden report a declining interest in the technology programme’s year four (T4), interest from Ystad has been the exact opposite. 

- For students who are interested in a technical education, it is worth keeping this in mind before making their high school subject choices. These high school engineering graduates are very well-educated students after these four years and those of them who go on to gain employment at HydX, will receive additional specialist training. This all means that in many respects, they have the same level of competence as those university engineering graduates who have studied hydraulics, but without ever needing to move from our region, says Mattias Salomonsson. 

- It is a win-win situation for the student, for our company and for our region as a whole. 

To be eligible to apply for the technology programme year four, students must have a high school technology diploma and be no more than 22 years of age at the time of application.