The OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (2013/14) supported by the Commission's DG Education and Culture highlights that: 20% of the EU working age population has low literacy and low numeracy skills; 25% of adults lack the skills to effectively use ICT. The bad situation in the area of proficiency in basic skills has direct consequences for Europe 2020 strategy, both at overall level and for individual countries. There is a need for strengthening the skills dimension of Europe 2020. This task requires greater investment in education and training and in times of tight public finances.The aim of the project is to increase the level of proficiency in basic skills (literacy, numeracy and digital skills) among low educated adults from Romania, Poland, Germany, Spain and Italy by September 2018. The partnership will achieve this aim through realization of the following operational goals:- gathering, analysing and categorising existing OER tools and good practices supporting education of low skilled adults- developing Interactive Pool (on-line database) of tools allowing for categorisation and assessment of existing tools and addition of new tools- developing Guide to Interactive Pool providing step by step instructions of using the Pool- disseminating the outcomes in order to assure their exploitation also in other European countries and other fields of educationThe project is addressed to low-skilled adults. However, a significant group which will benefit indirectly from activities organised by the project are: adult education centres, schools for adults, third age universities, associations which support enhancing basic skills, local and regional government education departments as well as adult educators. It is expected that about 2010 people will participate directly in the project activities and about 25 000 people will be notified about the project via digital means of communication. First of all partners will prepare state of art report and analysis of existing OER tools and good practices supporting education of low skilled adults based on which the main result: Interactive Pool will be created. Interactive Pool of recommendations will be an on-line Web application freely available as OER. It will be repository of tools (database) that support low skilled adults in education and training of basic skills and competencies, assessment of competencies and good practices. The Interactive Poll will contain tools for particular learning/assessment opportunities and good practices. The users will be able to view, search and filter - this will be possible to do without registration. Besides that the users will have possibility to assess the tools, post comments by each tool, and also add new tools that they would like to recommend to others - for this, the registration and login will be required. The Interactive Pool will be accompanied by Guide to Interactive Pool which will include explanations about OER, categories and tools that are included in the Interactive Pool and will give detailed instructions how to use the tool. It will be very practical, together with pictures and step by step explanations of chosen categories of tools. It will consist of two parts - one for low skilled adults and one for organisations providing training for adult people. The Interactive Pool will be tested by 250 representatives of target groups. The expected impact of the project concerns partners’ organizations, their staff and learners, low-skilled adults and adult education providers, operators in the field of adult education (Teachers, educators and other employees of adult training institutions as well as the members of organisations operating in the field of adult education). The participation in the project activities will broaden their horizons in general but most importantly, their awareness about lifelong learning will increase, their knowledge about existence of various tools and opportunities to learn will enlarge and they will be able to develop own skills and gather new competences (only the usage of Interactive Pool itself will increase their ICT skills, and using other tools that will be gathered in the Poll will increase their competencies in areas that they will choose).
The project’s idea came from analysis of the situation in the area of proficiency in basic skills of adult people. The OECD's Survey of Adult Skills (2013/14) supported by the Commission's DG Education and Culture highlighted that 20% of the EU working age population had low literacy and low numeracy skills and 25% of adults lacked the skills to effectively use ICT. These numbers meant direct consequences for Europe 2020 strategy, both at overall level and for individual countries and showed the need for strengthening the skills dimension of Europe 2020. In view of this situation, the main objective of the project was to increase level of proficiency in basic skills among low educated adults from Romania, Poland, Germany, Spain and Italy through realizing the following operational goals: gathering, analysing and categorising existing OER tools and good practices supporting education of low skilled adults, developing Interactive Pool (on-line database) of tools allowing for categorisation and assessment of existing tools and addition of new tools, developing Guide to IPool providing step by step instructions of using the Pool and disseminating the outcomes in order to assure their exploitation also in other EU countries and other fields of education. The partnership consisted of 6 organisations, all providing training for adult people and in particular with experience in work with low-skilled adults. Among partners, there were: the coordinator, CDA, non-governmental and regional coverage Association providing support in the region by organising consultancy and educational activities (among others), two Polish organisations: Danmar Computers working in vocational and adult education field providing training and developing IT solutions for educational purposes, and CK Edukator, adult education provider having experience with educating target groups especially through EFS initiatives, large scale German adult education provider, VHS Cham, having a leading role in defining education for adults and being the member of the Bavarian Adult Education Association, Spanish Confederation of Education and Training Centers (CECE) having over 40 years of experience in adult education and more than 2000 education and training centres among its members and Italian association ACLI supporting citizens, especially those that are threatened with marginalization and risk of social exclusion. The main undertaken activities in the project included work on the main results, meaning that the activities included gathering, analysing and categorising existing OER tools and good practices, works on development of the Interactive Pool together with its testing and releasing the final version and developing the Guide to Interactive Pool providing step by step instructions of using the Pool. Important part of activities included quality assurance and dissemination of the outcomes in order to assure their exploitation also in other EU countries and other fields of education. The results of the project include tangible results which are the state of art report, IPool database and the Guide, as well as many dissemination materials (website, social channels, leaflets, newsletters) and working materials including plans and very important intangible results. Those are: improved basic skills and competencies of adult people, especially those adults that have low skills, better awareness and orientation of target groups in existing tools and knowledge about using these tools, better educational offer of organisations offering training to adults as well as new networks of cooperation that the partners reached thanks to the project development. The impact of the project exceeded the expectations. It can be seen in partners’ organizations, their staff and learners, low-skilled adults and adult education providers, operators in the field of adult education. The most important is that all who participated in activities or at least heard about its results, have better awareness about lifelong learning, higher knowledge about existence of various tools and opportunities to learn which help to develop own skills and gather new competences. The usage of the Interactive Pool itself helps in increasing ICT skills but using the tools that are gathered in the database allows for increasing the competencies in many areas, depending on the choice of a tool. Project was addressed to low-skilled adults and it is expected that the benefits in the form of better skills will have long-term character in their lives. However, a significant group benefiting indirectly were adult education centres, schools for adults, third age universities, associations which support enhancing basic skills. These organisations will benefit from using the IPool as additional educational tool. As the database is self-expandable (it can be expanded by users by adding new tools), it is expected that it will be used by the organisations for longer time bringing them benefits.