The EDGE (Enhancing the Delivery of Guidance and Employability) Project aims to enhance the progression prospects of socio-economically disadvantaged adults in order to promote social inclusion and equality measures. Specifically, the EDGE Project aims to develop innovative approaches (career guidance, learner engagement strategies, self-evaluation tools, e-learning resources) in the provision of employability skills development. Amongst the partners (Ireland, Wales, Portugal, Austria, Greece), these learners comprise both young and mature adults who are early school-leavers, as well immigrants. The opportunity presented by Erasmus+ will enable partners to share best practice, drawn from our considerable collective experience in the delivery of second-chance education for adults and young people. The Project will explore the area of career guidance and how to identify practical learner progression pathways, including the obstacles (both personal and structural) that they must realistically overcome. There are four practical dimensions to the EDGE Project: (1) A comparative examination of the unemployment and activation contexts within the partner countries, each of which has experienced the global economic downturn in different ways. (2) The sharing of best practice with regard to the ways in which our respective organisations have responded to meet the skill needs of vulnerable adults and young people (e.g. access, engagement, retention, career guidance and employability provision). (3) An examination of the potential of the Mozilla ‘Open Badges’ system. This system, which is transferable, trackable and evidence-based, allows the learner to cumulatively gain formal recognition and credits for the skills (non-formal & informal) they learn. (Source: http://www.openbadges.org/). The intention is that each partner will trial the Open Badges system with a sample group of learners and evaluate its effectiveness and potential as a skills validation mechanism. (4) The partnership will develop an e-portfolio template as a dynamic and interactive Personal Progression Planning tool. The e-portfolio will record evidence and illustrate learning gained across modules, programs or different institutions. It will act as a toolkit to promote self-managed learning and career planning in a continuous developmental process and support the planning and delivery of service in a way that is learner-centred, systematic and effective. It is expected that the results and conclusions from the EDGE Project will be widely disseminated, through a variety of media, at local, national and international levels. It is envisaged that these results will also have positive reputational effects for our organisations and their associated networks and will have real longer term significance (post funding) in terms of how adult education providers can address the unemployment problem. Furthermore, practical ideas for future cooperation and development will have been identified. Finally, our proposal is informed by the European Employment Strategy 2020, which is a strategy to support employment, productivity and social cohesion in Europe. This Strategy demands that member states develop more effective systems to integrate young people and vulnerable groups into the labour market in the promotion of equality and social inclusion.
The EDGE (Enhancing the Delivery of Guidance and Employability) Project aims to enhance the progression prospects of socio-economically disadvantaged adults in order to promote social inclusion and equality measures. Amongst the partners (Ireland, Wales, Portugal, Austria, Greece), these learners comprise both young and mature adults who are early school-leavers, as well immigrants. The opportunity presented by Erasmus+ has enabled partners to share best practice, drawn from our considerable collective experience in the delivery of second-chance education for adults and young people. Specifically, the objectives of the EDGE Project were to develop innovative approaches (career guidance, learner engagement strategies, self-evaluation tools, e-learning resources) in the provision of employability skills development. These have been achieved through the production of our four Intellectual outputs: Open Badges Open badges are a new online 'learning currency' that can operate in conjunction with formal accreditation but can capture the granularity of the learning experience. The project developed a framework for creating, issuing and verifying Open Badges, created over 30 ready-to-use Badges, piloted these across the strategic partnership and incorporated the learner and staff feedback into the Badge framework. Learner and tutor/teacher resources have also been developed and are available (along with the Badges) on our website for practitioners, learners and other organisations to use. ePortfolio This tool consists of a Moodle-based Guidance and Employability Course which enables the learner to develop and collate their skills and achievements. This then feeds directly into the Mahara-based ePortfolio where a learner has a choice of using simple pre-built templates or designing their own ‘space’ to showcase their achievements and accomplishments so far (including any Open Badges they may have been awarded). Selected pages, using secret URLs, can then be shared with prospective employers or educational organisations. Learner Retention Guidelines The project also compiled and produced a set of guidelines for improving the engagement and retention of poorly motivated learners. All five partners perceive preventing early drop out as one of the keys to improving employability skills and enabling learners to develop and continue on a career path. A set of questionnaires was devised and agreed upon and then conducted among key focus groups in each partner country. The focus groups consisted of learners, teaches/tutors and programme managers. The results were collated and a set of ‘best practice’ guidelines were produced and disseminated across the strategic partnership and beyond. See project website for a full list of the guidelines. Final Report The first part of this is a concise handbook for practitioners that includes a step-by-step guide on how to set up and begin using the ePortfolio and Open Badges. This guide is available internally to any manager or tutor/teacher to learn about and implement our digital tools in their programmes. This guide is also available to any external party that would like to develop and implement Open Badges and the ePortfolio in their own organisations. The second part of the report details the research, methodology and the results from our focus groups and pilot studies. In order to produce the outputs above, the project undertook the following activities: Five transnational meetings, research and presentation on the national unemployment context, current policy and responses and resources available in each country, conducted focus groups to ascertain barriers to learner retention and solutions to improving retention of poorly motivated learners, piloted our two digital tools - ePortfolio and Open Badge Framework, up-skilled key staff in the use of these digital tools, created a website (www.edgeproject.eu) to share and disseminate our outputs and results, developed and implemented a Monitoring and Evaluation strategy and disseminated our results locally, regionally and internationally through local media, events, and the production and distribution of five newsletters. Our target groups now have two new digital tools to improve their employability skills and therefore improve their chances of gaining employment. Our Open Badges offer our target groups recognition of their existing informal/non-formal skills as well as making them aware of the skills and attributes that they need to acquire. Secondly, through the ePortfolio our target groups have access to a one-stop guidance resource which takes them through an online course designed to identify what skills they have and what skills they need and then showcase these along with their formal accreditation, Open Badges, and other achievements. These two outputs are supported by our Final Report which has a step-by-step guide to setting up and using these digital tools.