Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training: "Training of Individual skills to improve the quality of life and the ability to work through biodiversity and ecological production measures" In this partnership, 10 institutions of horticultural education from 8 European countries will work together: they come from Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium. The participating institutions are vocational schools, technical schools, middle level vocational schools and the Association for the Promotion of European Horticulture Teachers. Horticulture is a very broad training and working area with many specialized disciplines and niche cultures, reaching from production to service. The horticultural activities should be carried out under the special respect of natural environment, use and protection of local resources, nature conservation and biodiversity. Since the profession is constantly changing, employability remains the more constant, the more workers can keep up with the evolution of the tasks. The object and purpose of this project is to provide a supplement to regular training of the trainees / students' competences, knowledge and skills, through which they are more able to improve their own quality of life and the quality of life of their fellow human beings, while increasing their opportunities on the European labor market. To achieve this goal, we have chosen as subject-related topics some niche areas of horticulture: ecological production of fruit and vegetables in comparison between old and new varieties, small-scale circular economy, the use of local products in horticulture including in floristry and gardening and landscaping, the importance of bees in horticulture and nature conservation, the importance of peat in horticulture and in the natural environment, the importance of local flora in horticulture and nature conservation. These are teaching or training topics from the horticultural training, already being taught in some countries and providing added value to the other partners by increasing the motivation of teachers / trainers and offering to them new topics / aspects / forms of instruction they will use in their next lessons. Due to the largely practical implementation of the activities the students / trainees recognize the direct applicability of the earned competences at work and experience thus an increase motivation in their training, which leads to reduced school dropout. Target groups are therefore primarily horticultural students and trainees as well as quite explicitly the teachers and trainers of the partner institutions, where this project contributes to their continued professional education. Through the activities of the partnership, we also contribute to support the development of high quality vocational training with a strong employment-related learning component. There are mainly practical lessons and activities offered where tutorials, video tutorials, handouts, slide show are created. Through these outputs we show and offer different teaching and learning opportunities to complement the general classroom education especially emphasizing the areas of biodiversity and ecological production measures. These outputs can be used directly in the classroom and during professional education. Through the release of our outputs as study guides (such as tutorials that are uploaded on Youtube and European distribution platform, etc.) we approach other young people who are not currently involved in a horticultural training and who could be motivated by these alternative forms of learning, training and then begin a training or employment in the horticulture sector. The practical lessons are complemented by professional competitions, so that the participants can compare their practical skills and be inspired to further training. About 250 people are directly involved as a participant in the activities or transnational project meetings of the partnership In addition, other students / trainees and trainers / teachers are directly involved in the virtual mobilities before or after the teaching, learning and training activities at the participating institutions. In the local environment, we expect about 1600 indirect beneficiaries of this partnership.
Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training: "Training of Individual skills to improve the quality of life and the ability to work through biodiversity and ecological productionmeasures" In this partnership, 9 institutions of horticultural education from 7 European countries worked together: they come from Latvia, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium. The participating institutions were vocational schools, technical schools, middle level vocational schools and the Association for the Promotion of European Horticulture Teachers. Horticulture is a very broad training and working area with many specialized disciplines and niche cultures, reaching from production to service. The horticultural activities should be carried out under the special respect of natural environment, use and protection of local resources, nature conservation and biodiversity. Since the profession is constantly changing, employability remains the more constant, the more workers can keep up with the evolution of the tasks. The object and purpose of this project was to provide a supplement to regular training of the trainees / students' competences, knowledge and skills, through which they are more able to improve their own quality of life and the quality of life of their fellow human beings, while increasing their opportunities on the European labor market. To achieve this goal, we had chosen as subject-related topics some niche areas of horticulture: ecological production of fruit and vegetables in comparison between old and new varieties, small-scale circular economy, the use of local products in horticulture including in floristry and gardening and landscaping, the importance of bees in horticulture and nature conservation, the importance of local flora in horticulture and nature conservation. These were teaching or training topics from the horticultural training, already being taught in some countries and providing added value to the other partners by increasing the motivation of teachers / trainers and offering to them new topics / aspects / forms of instruction they will use in their future lessons. Due to the largely practical implementation of the activities the students / trainees recognized the direct applicability of the earned competences at work and experienced thus an increased motivation in their training. Target groups were therefore primarily horticultural students and trainees as well as quite explicitly the teachers and trainers of the partner institutions, where this project contributes to their continued professional education. Through the activities of the partnership, we also contributed to support the development of high quality vocational training with a strong employment-related learning component. There were mainly practical lessons and activities offered where tutorials, video tutorials, slide show were created. Through these outputs we showed and offered different teaching and learning opportunities to complement the general classroom education especially emphasizing the areas of biodiversity and ecological production measures. These outputs can be used directly in the classroom and during professional education. Through the release of our outputs as study guides (such as tutorials that have been uploaded on Youtube and European distribution platform, etc.) we hope to approach other young people who are not currently involved in a horticultural training and who could be motivated by these alternative forms of learning or training to begin a training or employment in the horticulture sector. The practical lessons were complemented by professional competitions, so that the participants had the opportunity to compare their practical skills and were inspired to further training. About 250 people were directly involved as a participant in the activities or transnational project meetings of the partnership. In addition, other students / trainees and trainers / teachers were directly involved before or after the teaching, learning and training activities at the participating institutions.