The project responds to current VET policy developments in the European Union. These in turn are a response to the economic policy objectives of the Agenda 2020. The EU aims to ensure that by the year 2020 75 % people in the working age are in employment. The currently extremely high youth unemployment rates in many European regions shows that efforts are needed to achieve this goal. One of the causes of youth unemployment is seen in the lack of employability of graduates of vocational training. It is criticized, that many VET systems generate not employable graduates and offer insufficient opportunities to acquire professional and personal skills that are demanded by the labor market. The EU calls on its members, therefore, to reform their national vocational education and training system. VET institutions and business have to cooperate with each other to compensate the current deficits. This is the starting point or leverage for the project. Training institutions with a floristic profile, a service industry that provides employment opportunities especially to women, develop the conceptual foundations for a future business-related training in this sector. They agree on units of learning outcomes and learning outcomes to arrange this. In order to facilitate the transfer of these units of learning outcomes in educational practice, pedagogical guidance for teachers and a method for measuring the learning outcomes are designed. The development of these documents is carried out in close cooperation with the professional associations of the sector. With the National Association of Saxony Association of German Florists (Landesverband Sachsen des Fachverbandes Deutscher Floristen) a professional association is a member of the project consortium. The single educational institutions cooperate with the florist associations at their national level. The project results will be examined on their practicality and ability to fit with the various training systems during carrying out of methodology workshops and student camps. To ensure the sustainability and the support during the transfer of the results of the training, we founded a mobility network for VET in floristry. The network will offer in the future cross-border mobility’s. During this mobility’s the participants can complete selected units of learning outcomes. Among the product of the project, there will be also an organisational handbook for mobility’s. The course of the project is documented by an experience report. This report is also used to disseminate the project results. The project will contribute to the improvement of the quality of training in floristry (strengthening the business relevance of the training) and it improves the transparency between European professional qualifications and open up opportunities to strengthen cross-border cooperation’s in training and for carrying out training mobility’s.
VocFlo responded to current developments in VET policy in the European Union. These in turn are a response to the economic policy objectives of Agenda 2020. The EU wants to ensure that by the year 2020 75% of the people in working age are in employment. The currently extremely high levels of youth unemployment in many regions of Europe make clear what efforts are needed to achieve this goal. One of the causes of youth unemployment is seen in the lack of employability of vocational training graduates. It is criticized that many VET systems are too remote from the economy and offer insufficient opportunities to acquire the professional and personal skills required by the labor market. The EU therefore calls on its members to reform VET. VET and the economy have to cooperate with each other to compensate for the existing deficits. At this point the project VocFlo starts. Educational institutions at various levels and professional associations of floristry, together with experienced project coordinators, agreed on conceptual foundations for economic and European cross-border vocational training in this sector. They described units of learning outcomes and assigned learning outcomes to them. In order to facilitate the transfer of these units of learning outcomes into educational practice, methodological-didactic guidelines were designed for teachers. The results of the project were examined during its runtime in a Methodology Workshop for teachers as well as a Student Camp for their practicality and compatibility with the different vocational training systems. A training program has been developed and tested, which will enable further teachers and multipliers in floristry to implement the learning outcomes approach in their institutions. To ensure sustainability and to support the transfer of results into VET practice, a network, the European Mobility Network for Vocational Training in Floristry, has been established and cooperation with new network partners has been initiated. In the future, this network will offer cross-border mobilities where participants can complete selected units of learning outcomes. The project's products therefore include a organizational handbook for mobilities. The course of the project is documented in a field report, which is also used to disseminate the project results. The project contributes to improving the quality of training in floristry (strengthening the economic relevance of training), contributes to improving the transparency between European vocational qualifications and opens up possibilities for strengthening cross-border training cooperation (mobilities).