The EURspace Project is developed by a European partnership consisting of eight entities from seven European countries: Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Lithuania, Turkey and Romania. The Project aims to contribute for the development of a European area of skills and qualifications through the development of a European Platform that provides support to ensure the recognition, validation, attribution of credits and certification of Initial Vocational Training units, applied within other European countries, allowing the combination of theoretical and practical approaches, therefore extending the national scale to the European scale. The project provides a set of structured activities, co-shared by the partnership over three years, in order to: 1. Developing a Digital Platform to support and to ensure the recognition, validation, allocation of credits and certification of qualifications and/or training units, based on learning outcomes, applied within other European countries, in the contexto of the Initial Vocational Training Courses, by reference to the European guidelines and recommendations about the ECVET, the EQF and the EQAVET; 2. Implement a pilot project for the mutual recognition, validation and certification of qualifications and/or learning units, among European countries, to the professional profiles of Hotel and Restaurant field, specifically, focused on the technical component of the Technician Course of Cooking and Pastry and the Technician Course of Restaurant and Bar Services. The methodology will be the identification of technological, technical and practical learning outcomes that are common to these qualifications, considering the different countries, grouping of learning outcomes in nuclear units, definition of credits and allocation of points. So, the first step is the depth study of curricula defined in each country for the mentioned qualifications. Then, a matching methodology of learning outcomes will be used for the identification of units of learning outcomes’ sets, definition of credits, definition of ECVET points allocation system, identification of the performance criteria and the requirements for the assessment of learning outcomes; 3. Elaboration of correlation matrices between the curricula of several European countries, concerning to the learning outcomes’ units of the technical component of the Technician Course of Cooking and Pastry and the Technician Course of Restaurant and Bar Services; 4. Create a EURspace Pedagogical Kit, consisting of a Methodological Guide for Professionals (descriptive guide of the methodology used) and a Battery of Instruments, prepared in reference to the methodology followed and to the European Commission guidelines about the ECVET, explaining the processes involved in the recognition, validation, attribution of credits and the allocation of ECVET points, as well as the steps and sub-steps of the work based to the assessment of learning outcomes (knowledge, skills, competencies) and the certification, considering the learning outcomes developed at formal learning contexts, in the framework of European mobility for Youths in Initial Vocational Training; 5. Create a Guide to support ECVET Understanding for Youths in IVT – EURspace for Youths in IVT. This guide aims to inform about the ECVET, the advantages of participating in a European mobility, integrating the learning outcomes developed in the context of the professional qualification course that are attending, providing guidelines on quality assurance through the option for mobility programs which provide the recognition and validation of the learning outcomes, the attribution of credits and the certification. This project is underpinned by the need to value, give credibility and recognize the learning outcomes developed in mobility training across Europe, through the recognition of these learning outcomes in the context of the initial vocational training qualifications. The intellectual products that result from the EURspace Project will be disseminated through multipliers events to be held in the context of the partner countries, alongside other dissemination activities. We highlight the sustainable feature of the European Digital Platform, designed to support and ensure the assessment of learning outcomes, the recognition, validation and certification of learning outcomes acquired in other European countries, under the IPF, and its potential of extending when combined with the use of the pedagogical kit for the transfer and application to other training areas.
The EURspace Project: European I-VET Recognition Portal, reference number 2015-1-EN01-KA202-013119, financed by the Erasmus + Key-Action 2 programme, has fulfilled the general objective of facilitating European youth mobility in IVET, contributing towards the development of a European skills and qualifications area, and promoting transparency in the processes of recognition, validation and certification of learning outcomes acquired abroad. The EURspace Project (https://eurspace.eu/) was developed by a European partnership consisting of 8 organizations from 7 European countries: five are schools providing Initial Vocational Education and Training courses (Portugal, Italy, Romania, Lithuania and Turkey); an association of vocational training centres (Spain); a polytechnic institute (France); and an organization specializing in e-learning training solutions and educational platforms (Spain). This project underpins the need to value, give credibility and recognize the acquired learning developed thanks to European mobilities, through the recognition of competencies within the Initial Vocational Qualification’s scope. The Project contributes to the mobility of citizens in Europe, transparency within the recognition of competencies and qualifications in VET, and towards the promotion of the implementation of ECVET, through tools that support the process of recognition, evaluation, validation, credit assignment and certification of learning outcomes units carried out in other European countries, allowing the combination of theoretical and practical approaches and extending the national “vision” to the European “vision” within the context of the initial vocational qualification of young people.. Throughout the project, three intellectual products were developed for the target-groups, considered to be of high interest and usefulness, which contribute strongly towards the sustainability and multiplication of results. The main intellectual products and outputs are as follows: - ECVET European Platform (Intellectual Output No. 1) - https://eurspace.eu/ecvet/. This output is a digital platform that provides pedagogical and logistical support to organizations involved in European mobility projects and want to implement ECVET. It contains open educational resources; a database of organizations working with mobility projects, project and forum discussions, reference examples based on learning outcomes, matching matrices, a pedagogical circuit with tools for the management of mobility projects and the implementation of ECVET. - EURspace Pedagogical Kit (Intellectual Output No. 2). This output consists of a Methodological Guide for Professionals and a battery of pedagogical tools, designed to implement the matching methodology, support the implementation of ECVET and support the management of European mobility projects. - Guide to Support ECVET Understanding for Learners (Intellectual Output # 3). This output is a guide for students who study IVT Courses, and provides them with information about ECVET in a creative way by giving them clues in order to make good choices about quality mobility programmes, which ensure recognition and validation of learning outcomes; - Matching Methodology - conceived in parallel to the implementation of a pilot project in the Hotel and Restaurant Management area; aims at the elaboration of a matrix with Learning Outcomes Units that are equivalent to a qualification, among several countries. It follows the EQF principles and the technical specifications of ECVET. The matching methodology is sustainable in the sense that it is transversal to different qualifications, training areas and countries. - Matching Matrices - available on the European ECVET Platform. Organizations registered on the platform can design their own matrices and make these available on the platform; - Qualification benchmarks based on Learning Outcomes - the references of the Cooking Technician qualification, adapted from the original references provided by each partner country, are available on the digital platform; - Pedagogical Circuit - virtual route of the stages and processes involved in the European mobility of students for learning purposes. Pedagogical instruments are associated with each stage. The tools devised serve the interests of a multiplicity of national and European actors and organizations, around national qualifications systems and bodies responsible for implementing ECVET, including national and European management bodies. It is in the interest not only of students participating in the European mobilities for formal learning purposes, but of the professionals of the organizations that promote European IVT mobility and of the schools and centres promoting IVT, but the results have also highlighted a high interest from national management bodies of the national qualification systems, which are responsible for the implementation of ECVET in various countries.