A case championship is an event where students solve a real task from a company. This site will take you step by step from the idea to a finished plan.
You read a short explanation and click “Next”. There are 19 pages in five chapters.
On eight pages you need to choose something or type a few words. They are marked with a “Fill in” label, and in the contents they have a small circle next to them.
Everything you have filled in comes together on the last page. You can download it as a Word file.
You just read. There is nothing to fill in.
You practise on a fictional company, Ladna Banka. This does not go into your plan.
You choose or type your own answers. This is what your plan is made of.
Take the logic, but write the words yourself. The letters, tasks and wording on the site show what it might look like. The company should hear the voice of your institution, not a template or artificial intelligence.
It takes about 30 minutes, and you can do it in several sittings: on this device the site will remember where you stopped. There is no registration. Whatever you type stays in your browser and is not sent anywhere unless you choose to leave your email on the last page. If you come back on another device, your plan won't be there, so download it.
89% of institutions run work placements with most of their partners, and 73% run company visits. That's the foundation, and it's needed. But only 5% hold case championships or skills competitions with most of their partners.
It's a simple way to bring something new to your partnership. You come to a company you already know with a specific idea, students take on one of its real tasks, and within a few weeks everyone can see the result.
Almost half of institutions (48%) say one of the main obstacles is that businesses don't see the value of working together. But when we asked the companies themselves, 90% said they consider VET graduates as job candidates. Only 5% said “no”. A conversation is possible. Someone just has to start it.
A case championship is a convenient reason to get in touch. You come with a specific offer, do a small project together and see whether you're comfortable working with each other. It doesn't take a big investment of time or resources. If you like it, you take it further.
Survey of 95 institutions and 58 companies, March–April 2026. All the figures are in the dashboard.
A case championship is a competition between student teams. A company provides a situation from its real work, and within a limited time the teams analyse it, come up with a solution and defend it before a jury that includes people from that company.
One that operates near you and has real problems to solve.
Something that has already happened in the company, or that could easily happen.
Teams have to think, decide and show their result before time runs out.
“A case is a real problem and challenge faced by a real company at a critical management decision point. You’re placed in the role of decision-maker, asked to analyze the data, develop alternatives and make and defend your recommendations.”
Ivey Business School, “The Ivey Case Study Method”
In vocational education, a case can also be a practical task: find a fault, make a part, develop a recipe. What matters is that it comes from the company's real work.
Hackathon, business game, business simulation, ideathon, innovation sprint, case competition, skills competition. There are lots of similar formats, and the lines between them are fairly blurred. A hackathon is more often about building something in a day or two. A business game is about making decisions in simulated conditions. An ideathon is about an idea without a finished product. At a skills competition students show a skill, but often there is no employer involved.
Here we say “case championship”. If you've already done something similar, read on: you might find a new approach. If you haven't, it will be all the more useful.
A bakery needs a modern Easter bread: made from local ingredients, at a sensible cost, and attractive to shoppers. Develop the recipe and the process sheet, work out the cost and present it.
The centre prepares children for school and teaches English. It needs a logo, a mascot, flashcards, a flyer for parents and social media posts.
How can a supermarket attract and keep Gen Z shoppers? The teams answered this right there in the shop.
Future welders make the same body frame parts that go to the assembly line.
After an air raid alert, the plant switched to emergency mode. The power is back, but a machine won't start and the automation isn't responding. Find the cause, get things running again and suggest how to avoid this in future.
A business game: the production line has failed. Each student is a worker with their own role, and the team looks for a way out together while new conditions keep being added.
There can be lots of variations. They all have one thing in common: there is a real company and a situation that needs a response.
All three sides win. Let's start with the student: after all, the whole point is for them to become a better professional.
People learn more about you than they would from a presentation, and get a feel for what it's like to work for you.
Before, the institution would give you a written reference for a student. Here you see for yourself what they can do and choose whom to take on for a placement or a job.
Kremenchuk Khlib Plus got three ready-made commercial Easter bread recipes.
A small project shows whether it's worth entering into longer cooperation with the institution, for example dual education.
Students get more than theory and the usual contact with employers, and people outside can see that.
You offer businesses a more interesting format and help make it happen.
Work placements, memorandums, jobs for graduates, company representatives on the supervisory board. This is what happened in institutions that have already run a championship.
We didn't make this up. VET institutions across Ukraine have run case championships together with businesses and got results. Click a card to see how it went.
Some of these championships have their own articles: the links are inside the Lutsk, Kyiv, Khmilnyk, Mykolaiv and Nadbuzke cards. All the articles are on the EasyBusiness website (in Ukrainian).
With a partner it's simple: you already know each other. Write or call and say you'd like to try something new together.
A new company doesn't know you. So first tell them briefly who you are, and only then make an offer.
You need one specific person: a workshop instructor, a methodologist or a deputy head. Every successful championship had someone like that. And where a championship didn't work out, it was mostly this person who was missing, not the partner.
Who you are, how many students you have, which specialities you teach. Keep it short, so the person reads it and thinks: “Oh, interesting.”
Try running a case championship together. A few sentences about what it is and what it might look like.
Let's meet – we'll tell you more and think about what could work for you in particular.
It's not as scary as it seems. In 8 of the 13 championships that institutions reported on, the partnership was agreed within a week, and in 5 of those within three days. In 9 cases out of 13 the institution already knew the company, and in two more personal contacts helped. But you can also start from scratch: TECHNO-ART College found Silpo on its own through the internet. It took the longest, over two weeks, but it worked.
Don't know whom to approach? Look at the companies around you using four criteria: whether what they do matches your specialities, how big they are, whether they are growing, and whether they are publicly visible. There is more on this in the Guide to VET–business partnerships (in Ukrainian).
This is just a starting point, so you don't have to begin with a blank page. The most important part of the letter is the “in your own words” lines: only you can write them. The company should hear the voice of your institution, not a template.
Want to compare different letters? The exercise from the bootcamp for institutions (in Ukrainian) has good and bad ones. They are about work placements and curricula rather than case championships, but the logic is the same: try to work out for yourself why one letter will work and another won't.
Ask an AI to read the letter as if it were a busy company manager: what will catch their attention, what will put them off, what to fix. Copy the prompt into any chat and paste in your text. The AI will suggest what to change, but the final words should be yours.
The company already knows you, and you are proposing a case championship. The logic of the conversation is simple.
What it is and how it works. Adapt the one-pager to your situation and send it: that's usually quite enough.
The example is a one-pager (in Ukrainian) made for institutions in the PAM project. You can send it along with your own text or use it as a basis. It mentions support from the project team: if you don't have that, tell the company you will take care of the organisation yourselves.
What is going on for it right now, and what might be interesting for students.
A person who will work out the task with you, and one or two representatives for consultations and on the jury. The institution takes care of the rest of the organisation.
Institutions most often said the hardest part was not persuading the company but finding the time: fitting into the class timetable without taking people away from their work. So talk about dates at the very first meeting.
This is the next and most important step. Do it together.
This is the part that matters most, and probably the hardest one. A task like “think about how to make the business more efficient” won't work: it's too broad. You need one specific situation. To find it, break the company down into parts.
It processes vegetables into sauces, lecho and preserves, and sells them through retail chains in the region.
The company is fictional. Let's practise on it.
The same case can be set in different ways. The more you put in, the more realistic it is for the students – and the more work it is for the company.
This is what a case might look like. It shows the logic, it's not a form to fill in: yours will be different, and you will describe it on the next page.
At levels 2 and 3, company files appear in the case: spreadsheets, documents, diagrams. All the files are made up. The files are in Ukrainian. Look at what exactly you could ask your own company for: it may give you quite different data, and less of it.
Want to see how big companies present their cases? Here are a few examples (in Ukrainian) from other championships: Kernel, Khlibprom, AB InBev. They are more complex and longer than you need, so take the logic from them, not the volume.
The same thing, but with a real company. It's best to answer together with your partner. Don't know everything? Write down what you know, and find out the rest at the meeting.
Will a team understand the task in five minutes? Will they manage to get something done in the time they have? Is it doable for your students' year? Is it safe? The task has to be both real and doable, and institutions say that isn't easy.
The AI will ask questions one at a time, suggest options if you don't know the answer, and write up the task on one page. Copy the prompt into any chat.
This will also be a draft: rewrite it together with the company, because its people know what everything is called there.
The hardest part is behind you: you have a case. It would be nice if the interesting task alone were enough to drive the students, but that kind of motivation almost never comes first. So think about incentives before you announce anything. You know your students best.
This is also worth deciding before any announcement. It all comes down to two questions: when do students find out the task, and do they need to prepare for it?
To keep everything as practical as possible, there should be people nearby who know the topic of the case well. And it should be easy for the teams to turn to them.
Mentors can also be the institution's own workshop instructors, as at Higher Vocational School No. 21 in Mykolaiv. But at least once, the teams should talk to someone from the company.
And one more role: someone from the organisers who answers questions, helps students form teams and reminds them to register.
This isn't a page about how to write copy properly. Just a few tips that really matter.
Tick the ones you will use. Social media and direct communication are usually enough.
The more channels, the wider the reach and, most likely, the more participants.
We strongly recommend the question about expectations: that way you collect feedback straight away, and after the event you can ask whether they were met. The question about the channel will tell you where to post next time.
While registration is open. Depending on the format, students can already see the task, or not yet. They register, form teams, and someone from the organisers answers questions and nudges those who are still making up their minds.
But whatever the format, someone will be judging the teams. It's the employer's business case, so it's best to work out the criteria together with them and tell the teams about them in advance. Click the ones that fit, up to five. You can add your own.
Several people will be scoring, and on a 10-point scale each of them will have their own idea of a “seven”. On a 3-point scale you will all score in much the same way.
Jury. At least two people, ideally three or four, from both the business and the institution. We recommend that a company representative chairs the jury: for students, it's the employer's assessment that matters most.
You can do it differently: just discuss without points, or make everyone a winner. It's up to you. We still recommend giving scores and naming a winner. A winner adds excitement, and scores make you think in a structured way rather than “these ones were cool and those ones weren't”. Afterwards you can talk it over and change your minds. If you really don't want points, at least have everyone rank the teams from best to worst.
Right after the event, while everyone still remembers the details. That way the next championship will be better.
The form is anonymous and takes two minutes.
Make sure you talk in person.
Write down what the employer said. Ask them to explain what exactly was good and what they got out of it. That way you will know whether you want to do it again, and you will have arguments for the next companies.
This is the logic of the argument, not a ready-made phrase. Say it the way you normally talk, and add the employer's own words.
Want to keep building the cooperation, not just run one championship? Read the practical guide “How a VET institution can build partnerships with business” (in Ukrainian).
Not every interaction with a business should be called a case championship. Let it be a special event: once a semester, or even once a year with a single employer. With several companies, that makes two to four a year. Better less often but on a bigger scale and with better prizes than a practical task at the end of every module.
Everything you filled in on the previous pages is collected here.
Form not opening? Open it in a new tab. The form is in Ukrainian.
