"The Europe 2020 strategy sets a headline target of 75% of people in the EU aged 20-64 to be in employment, compared to a current rate of 68.8%. For Roma, the employment rate is significantly lower, with a gap of around 26 percentage points according to World Bank research covering Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, and Serbia." (European Commission: Roma Integration – 2014 Commission Assessment: Questions and Answers, Brussels, April 2014(!)). "Member States should also put in place measures that address the low skill levels of Roma job seekers through vocational training and counselling. Measures are also needed to give incentives to employers to employ Roma, such as recruitment subsidies, job trial and apprenticeship schemes." (as above). Based on these concrete statements of European policy makers and the all over situation of dramatic unemployment rates with disadvantaged people in the European member states this calls for immediate action. All the current plans envisaged and set by the member states and the European Union especially towards the integration of Roma citizens are aiming at improving the general education level of young members of the target group but this has long term effects. Europe needs approaches and instruments for immediate impact on the target group. ECVET AGENT in front of this situation will develop a training programme for long term unemployed disadvantaged people, especially Roma citizens, in the field of agriculture and entrepreneurship. This training programme will enable the target group to be future self employed micro self entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector (especially vegetable growing) where on the one hand there is a huge need all over Europe for trained flexible work force as self and micro entrepreneurs and where members of the target group very often already have competences and knowledge from prior informal or non formal learning. This is also the reason why the project partners are going to develop an ECVET based recognition procedure for knowledge and competences gained through prior non formal or informal learning to make full use of the background of the target group and offer an adequante and relevant training programme. The three main intellectual outcomes of the project are: 1) an exloporation study report about the needs and requirements of the target group with a common summary translated into all languages of the partner countries (+HU language since the RO partner lives in a Hunagrian speaking region in Romania) 2) a curriculum and learning matreials for a training programme of about 150 study hours in the field of agriculture (with focus on vegetable growing) and entrepreneurship 3) a recognition procedure for competences acquired through non formal and informal prior learning processes based on the principles and instruments of ECVET The project partnership pf the ECVET AGENT project consists of experienced organisations from the sector of VET providers, target group representatives, policy makers, public and private organisations interested in the topic and target group.
"The Europe 2020 strategy sets a headline target of 75% of people in the EU aged 20-64 to be in employment, compared to a current rate of 68.8%. For Roma, the employment rate is significantly lower, with a gap of around 26 percentage points according to World Bank research covering Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Romania, and Serbia." (European Commission: Roma Integration – 2014 Commission Assessment: Questions and Answers, Brussels, April 2014(!)). Unemployment rates in general, youth unemployment rates in particular and especially unemployment rates within disadvantaged target groups in Europe such as Roma, migrants in general, ethnic minorities in general, low skilled persons in general are alarming all over Europe. Unemployment is in fact the biggest challenge for European society nowadays and the situation of the so called lost generation of young unemployed is going to have a sustainably bad impact on Europe’s development and cohesion. This is in fact alarming and calls for innovative and alternative solutions. The main objective of the ECVET AGENT project was the development of a VET training programme for agricultural competences together with entrepeneurship training for micro entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector, recognising already existing competences and learning outcomes on the basis of the ECVET model for ROMA and other disadvantaged (long-term) unemployed persons. This ECVET AGENT training project was: a) innovative: no such approach is still available in the European member states at the moment, the approach of ECVET AGENT makes full use of the European transparency instruments and creates an innovative approach for a qualification in VET for a target group which is suffering from discrimination b) motivating: the possibilty to use existing competences and knowledge in the recognition process made indivudial learning paths possible and motivated particiants to build on what is already existing in terms of personal skills and competences c) relevant: the programme reflected the competences and needs of the target group as well as of the labour market, micro enterprises in the agricultural sector are able to bridge the gap between the large enterprises and the needs of customers in terms of flexibility, variety of the offers, seasonal changes d) sustainable: our training programme in entrepreneurship allows from now on future self employment and maintenance of families and life. This investment in self employment and solid entrepreneurship skills as micro entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector in Europe is sustainable and self maintaining. All these four elements created the innovative dimension of the ECVET AGENT project and made it unique compared to existing approaches. The objective of the ECVET AGENT project was reached by concrete results: 1) Exploration study for the needs and requirements of the target group and the sector 2) VET training programme for agricultural entrepreneurship 3) ECVET based recognition procedure for learning outcomes from prior non formal or informal learning experiences The ECVET AGENT project contributed to a reduction in the number of low-skilled adults (re-skilling and up-skilling of adults) and promoted the take-up of practical entrepreneurial experiences in education, training and youth work. Both planned achievements raised the expected results and satisfied all involved parties. The result is that the average score from the participant evaluation of the pilot training also regarding their future employment opportunities is higher than 3 (out of 5 maximum score) and minimum 50 representatives of the target group in every partner country (except DE) will participate in the training programme every year after the project has ended. The ECVET AGENT project met approval on local, regional, national and European level as it clearly contributed to a strategy which is a European recommendation and had impact and consequences for all political and geographical level - the integration of Roma citizens and other disadvantaged long term unemployed persons. The ECVET AGENT project was developed by a consortium of eight partners representing Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, Italy, Romania, Croatia and Austria (2). The project consortium comprising NGOs, municipal organisations, VET providers, service organisations and private organisations were combining their considerable expertise to design and develop the training programme working closely with key stakeholders and target group members. The ECVET AGENT project had a clear strategy for sustainablility as core element and output for the time after the finacial support of the European Union has ended. The long-term impact refers to long-term educational and training consequences that can be observed after a certain period following the completion of the project and affects the target group of the project and other groups outside the boundary of the project.