How to solve the issue on mismatch between demand and supply of competences. Higher education of education and training professionals in the social economy

Education and training professionals involved in the social economy preside over specialist services aimed at boosting the knowledge, compe- tences and capacities of both the people to whom the services are aimed, and the people who operate within the social enterprises. In the enter- prises that manage services to citizens they have to perform both tasks, while in the other types of enterprise the tasks are mainly limited to tak- ing care of the employees’ personal and professional growth. Obviously, this de nition does not mean that all the social economy workers can be placed in the family of education and training profession- als. More simply, it implies that a type of workers who do not necessarily possess an initial training – or identity – that ts with these functions can be seen as having educational functions (either prevalently or in addition to other roles). But, as is known, the current state of things is the result of a lengthy process whose roots can be found in the historical mutual and solidaristic basis of the social movements. The culture of voluntary organizations is based on people’s ability to learn through mutual teach- ing and social practice. In a modern organization operating in the social economy sector, the education and training professionals are those workers with the capacities needed to imagine, lead and manage the di erent types of high-quality educational actions that the service provides. At the same time, the en- terprise’s possibility to constantly enrich its know-how on products, ser- vices, processes and clients also depends on them.