This project is in connection with, and operates as a complement to, the works of the European Agenda for Adult Education (Agenda Européen pour la Formation des Adultes, AEFA) in relation to cross-functional skills applied in professional situations. The choices of the Belgian, French and Luxemburgian partners, acting in a consortium promoted by the Public Interest Group (Groupement d’Intérêt Public, GIP) Continued Education and Professional Integration (Formation continue et insertion professionnelle, FCIP) of the Versailles Academy, under the supervision of the French Ministry of Education, are guided by the three following contextual ideas: - At the European level: European Union member States are required to implement, before 2018, a framework for the recognition (i.e., validation) of formal and non-formal training,- At the European francophone level: the international Erasmus+ conference, held in Brussels on 13 and 14 October 2015 at the initiative of three Erasmus+ European agencies (France, Belgium and Luxembourg) reiterated the necessity to establish links between the recognition of skills and employability, particularly for the poorly educated population,- At the national level: the ministries of education and employment of each of the three member States have clearly stated their intent to promote the articulation of professional certifications with mechanisms for recognizing and developing basic (also referred to as “key”) skills – in particular, in the context of social advancement.All the parties involved in this project have the expertise required to create a framework for the recognition of cross-functional skills in connection with professional certifications: experts in key skills, entities in charge of the recognition of professional skills, certification agencies, trainers and assessors in professional integration, experts in skills assessments.During the first phase of the project, the strategic partners will develop a common framework of cross-functional skills coordinated with the European Qualifications Framework (EQF).The added value of this project resides in the adjustment of these skills depending on the level of proficiency, which enables recognizing partial proficiency and relying on existing experience. Acknowledging and valuing existing experience means that the action will be conducted in an adult, egalitarian, and inclusive manner.The proposed methodology associates the professionals and the end beneficiaries, in particular to ensure the clarity of the descriptors, the relevance of the framework for consensual uses, in response to the needs of the professionals: assessors, orientation professionals and trainers, in charge of developing the employability of poorly qualified or education population. The second phase is intended to achieve the adoption of the framework by multiple professionals in charge of the job-seeking population – youths 16 to 25 years of age, or adults of over 26 undergoing professional retraining or in difficult situations (e.g., subsidized contracts, recipients of social benefits). Systems for self-evaluation and innovative evaluation will be co-developed and tested by these professionals. The feedback of the end-users will be collected by the members of the scientific committee, under the supervision of the University of Luxembourg and the researchers and representative experts of the three member States. Strategic national orientation committees are associated to the project, with a view to progressively implementing the innovation resulting from the framework and the evaluation processes developed between 2016 and 2018 in the training and professional certification mechanisms. This project has an impact on the development on the structure of professional certifications. This structure makes use of a common set of skills, made known to and accessible by professional orientation, evaluation and training professionals and, more importantly, by the end-users, who are a considered as a stakeholder in the evaluation process. These self-evaluation and skill recognition processes also contribute to accelerate the recognition and validation of cross-functional skills that are necessary and useful for the employability of the population without diploma, and the migrants living in francophone countries. Regarding the European spread beyond francophone territories and partners associated in the project, it will be carried out by network heads involved in various European projects in relation to the development of key skills, literacy programs and language training for migrants.
-The context of the RECTEC project is that of Europe where deep and rapidly changing technological mutations and important economic and political migration movements are combined. Faced with these changes, inclusion is more than ever at the heart of employment policies where the recognition of transversal skills is a major challenge. In parallel, an observation dominates on the field of insertion. If the will to recognize the competences of the populations is unanimously shared, the methodological entries, the tools of measurement and evaluation, their links with the engineering of courses remain them, often eclectic and little formalized. There is also a multitude of repositories, grids, devices "key skills" and "basic" not consensual and extremely confusing. Faced with the challenge of inclusion, one of the levers identified by the European Union concerns the validation of non-formal and informal training according to rigorous modalities, which it wishes its Member States to adopt. At the Erasmus + international conference, held in Brussels in October 2015, the importance of linking skills recognition and employability, especially for the low-skilled, is reiterated. Also the European Qualifications Framework is the tool to refer to in order to determine the skills of individuals in relation to certification levels. -The objectives corresponding to the 3 phases of the project are as follows: • Develop a common repository of cross-curricular competencies, based on the benchmarks used by the partners, graduated and calibrated by level of proficiency. Progress stages are mapped to the European Qualifications Framework • Formalize various assessment approaches according to differentiated uses - employability, orientation, access to certifications, training. • Build a practical guide for using the repository, which takes into account the different assessment procedures, based on the devices, their aims and engineering, and the observations and gains resulting from the experiments. • Organize a dissemination symposium of all the works in which all the representatives of the actors involved in the training and integration of the 3 countries represented in the project are invited. -Number and profile of participating organizations The group is composed of varied and complementary actors; Institutional, academic and operational to meet all the requirements for innovation and dissemination inherent in the strategic projects of which RECTEC is a part. In addition, in response to the expected equity and specified in the specifications, there are 3 organizations for each of the countries represented in the project: • France: CAFOC of Nantes, ID6 educational structure, GIP FCIP of the Academy of Versailles • Luxembourg: University of Luxembourg, 4motion, educational structure BRAINIACT, educational structure (now DE RESO in the course of the project) • Belgium: Competence Validation Consortium, AID - Integrated Development Actions, Integration Enterprises (Work Training), Alterform, Insertion (AID network member) -Description of the main activities implemented These activities in connection with the objectives mentioned above and the commitments made as of the writing of the application in terms of types of intellectual productions, quality and time are as follows and will be specified during this final report: • Implementation and project management • Transnational meetings • Intellectual productions • Dissemination event • English translation of the guide -The results and impacts achieved are beyond those expected. Indeed this project met a real echo, especially in France. A study published by Pôle Emploi reflects the skills expected by employers. In addition to training and professional experience, recruiters are looking for candidates with skills and qualities, referred to as cross-cutting. Moreover, the technological changes and the unprecedented speed with which trades and companies are evolving make it necessary to transform the vocational training system and a paradigm shift accelerating employability, to which the competency-based approach and RECTEC are in fact contributing. Concretely the number of experimental grounds, the type of structures, devices and purposes were much higher and varied than expected. It also appeared that RECTEC is a relevant approach to mobility in the civil service, the employed and whose qualification is below level 4 of the CEC. Finally, a particular enthusiasm was observed to participate in the symposium which brought together more than 200 persons as guests.