This project, titled ”Employability and Workplace Skills for VET Students” will be carried out by 7 partners (3 VET High Schools - from Romania, Macedonia and Turkey), a 28 VET institutions association (Spain) and other 3 European Organizations (Belgium, Germany, UK) over a period of 24 months. The main aim of the project is to create valuable and innovative learning resources in order to increase the relevance of VET education to the level market and to challenge youth unemployment issue. Most of the graduates lack the transversal skills that may help them find and keep a job, and they don’t know where and how to search for a job. Although they have technical skills, they lack communication skills, customer care skills, team-working skills, they are not aware of the importance of a pro-active attitude and of the professional image in finding a job. Although for some of them, the local context would be favorable for starting a small business they do not have the necessary knowledge. The main objectives of the project are the following: 1. To equip with Employability, Entrepreneurship & Workplace Skills at least 100 students by the end of the project and at least 2000 over the next 5 years; 2. To develop and make available as OER new, innovative and adapted to the labor market needs new VET teaching and learning materials, by exploiting the potential of ICT; 3. To train at least 120 VET teachers/trainers to use the developed resources by the end of the project; 4. To facilitate contact between the available qualified workforce and employers; 5. To foster transnational cooperation between VET education providers and potential employers and align the skills of the students to the labour market requirements; 6. To increase the use of ECVET and EQUAVET among the VET institutions; 7. To increase the visibility of the VET qualified students/graduates on the labor market by equipping them with personal branding skills; 8. To increase access to information and quality training, especially for students from disadvantage groups/backgrounds; The partnership includes both top-performers (Germany, Belgium and UK) at graduates employment rates and countries with the lowest youth labour market integration and high drop-out rates among VET students (Spain, Turkey, Macedonia, Romania) and provides an equilibrate and wide geographical coverage. The project aims to produce 2 main intellectual outputs - EWS (Employability & Workplace Skills for VET Students) E-learning Course and a set of Employability&Workplace Skills for VET Students Teaching & Learning Kit which will be made available for free in all 7 languages of the partners for a large number of final beneficiaries. The dissemination and exploitation of results strategy is especially important for our project. It will be a multi-level approach, including both centralized and decentralized activities (carried out by each partner). Two multiplier events will be organized: the first one will be a Seminary taking place in Brussels and aiming to reach a wide range of persons with a high potential of multiplication, as members of different EU institutions. Due to its presence in Brussels IFH partner will be able to reach target audiences with a high multiplying capacity, such as: - Participants from the international community, particularly from European Institutions (up to 40 persons); -Permanent representations and Missions of the Countries involved in the project; - representations of regions and Municipalities in Brussels - umbrella organizations; - representatives of the educational and employability sector from programme Countries; The second multiplied event will take place in Romania and will have the format of an one-day train-the-trainer course. It will be addressed to VET specialists willing to make use of the learning resource. The impact is expected to be highly significant at all levels, but especially on the final beneficiaries (VET learners) and employers. The project is aiming to contribute to the general efforts of reducing youth unemployment rates, offering equal opportunities for students facing different types of obstacles and increasing the quality, relevance and attractiveness of VET education.
The project titled ‘Employability and Workplace Skills for VET Students’ has been implemented by a consortium formed of 7 partners, including VET providers/VET provider associations, VET support organizations and NGOs, between October 2015 and September 2017. In terms of context and addressed needs, the project met a series of realities present at the level of the partners organizations but also Europe-wide, the average youth unemployment rate being more than twice as high as the rate for adults in most Member States. With high numbers of young people declaring they can't find a job, and also many employers reporting problems in finding workers with appropriate skills, it was clear that graduates lack the transversal skills that may help them find and keep a job, and they don’t know where and how to search for a one. The project idea has been built around VET student’s needs of being equipped with transversal, employability and workplace skills to make them able to find and keep a job or start a small business after graduation, but also on institutional/organizational needs of both VET providers (who needed to strengthen their focus on employability and become more sensitive to the needs of the modern labour market) and employers’ (which need fresh workforce already equipped with workplace skills). The project was results-oriented, its main aim being to create a set of resources (an e-learning platform and a set of teaching and learning kits) to be used by a large number of final beneficiaries in order to develop transversal skills necessary for a successful labour market integration of the VET graduates. The most important objectives successfully reached by the project were related to: - Equipping with Employability, Entrepreneurship & Workplace Skills at least 100 students by the end of the project – we already have more than 600 certificates already issued for the online course; - Developing and making available as OER new, innovative and adapted to the labour market needs new VET teaching and learning materials, by exploiting the potential of ICT ; - Training VET teachers/trainers to use the developed resources by the end of the project; - Facilitating contact between the available qualified workforce and employers; - Fostering transnational cooperation between VET education providers and potential employers and align the skills of the students to the labour market requirements; - Increasing the visibility of the VET qualified students/graduates on the labour market by equipping them with personal branding skills; In order to reach the above-mentioned objectives, 2 intellectual outputs have been developed (both available in all partner’s languages): O1 - The E-learning Platform with 9 Modules: 1.Personal And Professional Development 2. Job Searching, CV Writing and Interview Skills Development 3. Professional Image and Personal Branding 4. Customer Care 5.Team Work And Intercultural Skills 6. Rights And Responsibilities In The Workplace 7. Effective Communication, Time Management & Social Intelligence In The Workplace 8. Professional Communication In English 9. Entrepreneurship Skills O2 – The Teaching and Learning Kit, a resource complimentary to the e-platform to be used by teachers/trainers/career counsellors in class activities. In order to develop this last output, 3 teachers from each VET education provider attended a joint staff training event organized by HETEL (Spain) on cooperative learning, entrepreneurship, career-guidance and job hunting. Also, 3 Multiplier Events have been organized in Belgium, Romania and Republic of Macedonia. Each partner brought specific experience and skills to the partnership, along with access to different and most relevant target groups for dissemination. Apart from IOs, multiplier events and learning activities, we have also organized 7 webinars (each partner involving at least 20 VET professional) in order to train them in using the resources. The coordinating institution from Romania piloted a special activity, which was not initially foreseen into the application but proven to be a great success and will be undertaken by the other partners during the following year, in order to ensure sustainability and exploitation beyond the partnership. A regional VET providers networks have been set up, partnership contracts being signed – representatives from more than 20 VET high-schools were trained on how to use the resources and implement them into their day by day activity during the current school year By the present moment, a number of over 2000 online tests have been taken by students from different organizations and 600 certificates already issued. The project has reached a large target audience including EU-wide VET networks, the impact on the partner organizations evaluated as highly significant and impact beyond the partnership also visible already.