The project rationale is rooted within the in the objectives of ET 2020, Rethinking Education, the Bruges Communiqué as well as the Riga conclusions of June 2015 that invite companies, social partners and VET providers to promote work-based learning in all its forms and to make WBL approaches more effective and more targeted to the labour market needs. Within this context the project partners, according to their everyday experiences in the field of I-VET and therefore through a direct contact with the stakeholders, identified common challenges and related needs to be addressed:- Post secondary, non-tertiary courses, still lack in matching companies and trainees needs, as the amount of traditional classroom based activities is still too high. This lead to a demotivation of the trainees.- Companies managers, do not have enough time resources to be fully involved in training activities and therefore VET providers are not able to involve them in delivering the lessons - Apprenticeships are usually related to a small (or anyway insufficient) number of companies of the local area of the VET provider, and as a consequence they lack in effectiveness for the trainees, and also does not provide with an international dimension which at the contrary a key issue within a globalized market.In order to answer to these needs the project aims to:- Motivate post-secondary VET students at risk of dropping out- Enhance the participation of Agribusiness managers and responsible of the marketing area in the training of the future human resources - Improve the internationalization of the training offer of the post-secondary VET providers and develop a ICT platform for the internationalization of apprenticeships The project will address the Agrobusiness sector and will involve:20 VET trainers 400 VET students 40 companies’ manager In the creation and testing of 3 Intellectual Outputs:Repository of e-learning video lessons and interviews collecting Video lessons for the marketing of Agribusiness companies, delivered by managers and experts and providing VET students with specific knowledge, competences and skills coming directly from the market in order to be prepared to international work placements, acquiring the specific requirements that are necessary to work in the different countries represented within the project partnership.Guidelines for the organisation of international placement providing VET providers, students and companies with a package of easy to use guidelines and tools to effectively plan and manage international placements.On line platform for the organisation and management of virtual internships containing the profiles of companies representing the agribusiness sector willing to host virtual internships. The profiles of students that are interested to carry out their placement at international level through a virtual internship experience; a monitoring tool through which the VET provider, the company and the student can interact and monitor the virtual internship; an assessment tool with which the VET provider can cooperate with the company in order to assess and validate the knowledge, skills and competences acquired by the student in order to issue the final certification and recognition of the credits according to the ECVET requirementsThe project will achieve the following long term resultsMotivate post-secondary VET students at risk of dropping out, by providing them with enhanced Work Based Learning methods and tools based on the full exploitation of ICT and multimedia communication potential to:• Acquire knowledge, competences and skills coming directly from the market preparing themselves to international work placements, acquiring the specific requirements that are necessary to work in the different countries represented within the project partnership (e.g. how to develop an appropriate marketing strategy in Italy or in Spain).• Acquire awareness, through real life cases, of the importance for companies that human resources they are going to select and employ, have both the technical and professional skills to perform the specific task and the basic and transversal skills that can be acquired only by completing VET education, so to gain motivation to continue their studies.Create a transnational network of VET providers, companies and social partners cooperating for:• Enhance the participation of managers and responsible of the marketing area of Agribusiness companies in the training of the future human resources, through the use of the communication potential of Media and ICT • Making available a market oriented training offer and business driven learning paths, based on the full implementation of work based learning approaches, to the students of the Agribusiness sector.• Providing a platform to use as a reference for organising international apprenticeship also through the implementation of Virtual placements experiences
Context/background of the project The IWB-Labs project focus on the agribusiness sector and, with the purpose to increase students’ motivation, proposes the application of a Work-based learning (WBL) approach. The students will carry out virtual work experience s where they can apply, in a real work environment, the skills learnt at school. The work experience, which will be carried out at transnational level, will take the form of a virtual internship carried out at distance. Objectives The IWB-Labs project aims to: • Motivate post-secondary VET students • Enhance the participation of Agribusiness managers in the training of the future human resources • Improve the internationalization of the training offer of the post-secondary VET providers • Develop a ICT platform for the internationalization of apprenticeships Participating organisations The project partners actively worked to make the impact of the project on its target groups as relevant as possible. For this purpose they involved in the project activities: - 123 companies for the virtual internships - 57 companies for the other IOs’ development; - 56 company managers; - 26 VET Organisations - 41 VET Trainers - 2 075 students (almost 400 of them uploaded their CV on the virtual internship platform). - 30 associated partners including companies, trade associations, NGO, public authorities, VET consortiums and universities. Activities The project activities will be organized in the following phases: Phase 1 - Repository of e-learning video lessons and interviews This phase was devoted to the creation of a repository of video lessons for the marketing of Agribusiness sector, delivered by managers and experts and providing VET students with specific knowledge, competences and skills coming directly from the market in order to be prepared to international work internships. Phase 2 – Guidelines for the organisation of internships This phase was dedicated to the development of guidelines for the organisation of internships providing VET providers, students and companies with a package of easy to use guidelines and tools to effectively plan and manage internships. Phase 3 – On line platform for the organisation and management of virtual internships This phase was dedicated to the creation of an on line platform for the organisation and management of virtual internships containing: the profiles of companies; the profiles of students; a monitoring tool; a database of assessment tools. Phase 4 - Testing Each of the deliverables produced was tested in the framework of specific events addressed to the project’s target groups. The testing phase allowed the collection of relevant feedbacks from the end users in order to further improve the deliverables produced and create results that are fully consistent with needs and expectations of the end users. Phase 5 - Training and Multiplier events The project partners organized focus events addressed to the target groups in order to present the 3 intellectual outputs and involved the participants in a further discussion and reflection on the measures to enhance and improve the effectiveness of work based learning approaches in VET and in the organisation of transnational and virtual apprenticeships. Results and impact attained The main project deliverables include: - Repository of E-learning Video Lessons and Interviews - Guidelines for the Organisation of International internships - Platform for Virtual Internship The project impacted on: - VET TEACHERS providing them with innovative work based learning teaching methods for enriching their classroom lessons with Video based materials facilitating students understanding of what are companies expectations in real life business scenarios and motivate them students to finish their VET training paths Also the project implemented effective alternation between training and work through transnational apprenticeships and established fruitful cooperation with companies for organising international and virtual placements - VET STUDENTS who acquired knowledge, competences and skills in the fields of the latest trends in agribusiness and raised their awareness on the importance that companies give in the selection of their human resources. Students also got in contact with European companies of the sector in order to carry out transnational apprenticeships virtual or in person and also experimenting forms of teleworking - COMPANIES managers and trainers, by involving them in the creation of the Video collection of training contents. Companies reinforced their participation to the definition of VET training contents addressed to their future workforce, making sure that VET students get trained to be prepared to match their needs of human resources. Longer-term benefits The project outputs have a strong transferability potential and are expected to have long term benefits on the VET sector through a strong cooperation pattern between companies and Vet providers.