One of the priorities of European Commission Road Safety Programme 2011-2020 is strengthening education and training for road users. The projects' aim to develop new study material for road safety education providers in order to improve road safety through the development of driving teachers' education in Estonia, Finland and Norway is consistent with the EU Road Safety Programme. Cross-border cooperation enables the participating educational institutions to bring together and gather know-how of training of driving teachers including modern teaching methods and best practices. At the present time in the driving teachers' education there is a lack of common teaching materials. During the project the partners will comply new teaching and learning material - study book - which is useful for both for students and lecturers. The created study material will be in open use for all the stakeholders. The study material will be available at the project partners' libraries and websites, where it may be used by alumni or other organizations and partners related to road safety/ driving teachers' education. The innovative aspect of process of composing the study book consists of close cooperation with relevant stakeholders and involving students as the main target group to the process as experts.Adult learners with working experience from the field of road safety will be involved to the process of developing new study material through intensive programs. The teachers will prepare the draft materials/chapters which will be analyzed, further discussed and complemented by students and as a result of each program there will be a compromised and finaized chapters ready for the study book. Involving students' previous working and learning experiences makes them active partners in the process and since they will be the ones carrying it out as driving instructors in the future the project establishes a common and shared platform for teacher training of driving instructors in Europe.The implementation of the project enables partners to strengthen their capacities in the training of driving teachers, to develop a curriculum at the international level. It has a positive impact and contribution to the development of the quality of higher education in participating countries. Successful implementation of the project supports student exchange in the future as they have the possibility to use the new commonly created study material in different countries and universities. The project implementation also supports lifelong learning.
The project: „Modernized teaching material and methodology for road safety educators“ main idea was to strengthen international cooperation between three project partners through two student mobilities, four international project meetings, one intellectual output and one dissemination event. Project partners are: 1. Tallinn University Haapsalu College (TUHC) - Beneficiary Haapsalu College is a regional college and a campus of Tallinn University situated in Haapsalu. College provides applied (professional) higher education programmes in 4 different fields:Traffic safety, Handicraft Technology and Design, Health Promotion Specialist and Applied Computer Science. 2. Nord University, Stjørdal - Partner Nord University Stjørdal hosts studies within traffic and transport, as well as part-time studies within health care and pharmacy. 3. Häme Vocational Institute Driving Instructor Education Centre - Partner Häme Vocational Institute is a multi-disciplinary upper secondary level institute comprising of special units for agriculture, dairy production, driving instructor training and horticulture and landscaping. The institute produces skilled graduates with vocational qualifications in forestry, the dairy industry, farming, horticulture and landscaping. Upper secondary vocational qualifications can be taken as part-time studies. The project subject "Road safety" has brought the project partners together before the project and will do it certainly in the future as well. Road safety is a commonly shared interest between the three partners. TUHC has a curriculum of Traffic safety, Nord University, Stjørdal has it's own driving school and many curricula connected with road safety, Häme Vocational Institute has an independent department dedicated to road safety: Driving Instructor Education Centre. As traffic safety education is rather unique and exclusive subject in higher education - the three partners are best suitable in Norten-Europe. One of the project main objectives was to develop new study material for road safety education providers in order to improve road safety through the development of driving teachers' education in Estonia, Finland and Norway. In order to complete this objective several activities were carried out: 1. Four international project meetings - Originally were planned three meetings each connected with one of the other activities (two with student mobilities and one with dissemination event), but for the compilation of a book the writers needed one additional meeting, just to clarify different aspects concerning the textbook. 2. Two student teaching and learning mobilities - one in Finland (participated: 5 students from Estonia, 5 students from Norway and 8 students from Finland) and the other in Norway (participated: 6 students from Estonia, 9 students from Norway and 4 students from Finland). Both student mobilities contributed into the writing of a textbook. In the first mobility students and teachers tested several ideas and gather thoughts about topics that should be in the textbook and in second mobility students gave feedback to the articles composed. 3. Dissemination event in Estonia - road safety conference: Theory and Practice in Driver Education. The dissemination event was dedicated to the intellectual output and was a success in every way. There were two keynote speakers talking about overall ideas and state of road safety in Europe and also all the writers introducing their chapter of the textbook. All the participants (119 people) had a chance to acquire the new textbook. The textbook was released in October 2018 and all the project partners had 200 copies of the book. As the book was written in English TUHC translated all the articles into Estonian and the articles together with the videos made from the conference are now being used as a study material in Traffic safety curriculum. The created textbook is also available for all the interested parties on project partners' websites. During the project all the participating teachers and students gained new experience, improved their English language skills, improved cooperation and intercultural skills. Project partners gained new teaching and learning material, strengthened their international cooperation and improved the quality of higher education in their institutions.