The main objective of our project “Qualiship” is an exchange of different support systems of internships on a national level. This includes an exchange of basic models of competences and instruments, which are relevant for the preparation, implementation and evaluation of internships. Erasmus+ offers standardized instruments (e.g. learning agreements), but we will focus on the state of the art on the national level in the project countries. Our goal is to study and compare the different support systems of internships. The project involves 3 VET schools from Austria, Spain and the UK and 2 VET NPO's from Spain and Italy. The Austrian organization is the project coordinator. Background in Austria: The Federal Ministry of Education developed a model of social and personal competences for VET schools – not specifically conceptualized for internship. There was also a working group to develop instruments for supporting internships at VET schools. Phases and work schedule: Start of the project: October 2017 – preparation for the project kick-off meeting in November 2017. Staff training in March 2018 in Spain. Partner meeting in autumn 2018 in the UK and partner meeting in spring 2019. Evaluation and completion of the project till August 2019. At the first meeting, the Austrian national criteria of quality for internships will be presented. Documents will be prepared for all participants – competency model, record keeping of internships – which are used for the documentation of the internships. Our activities will focus on a selection of questionnaires and information, which are necessary for a comparison of different quality management systems. The following questions will be discussed: How are the internships supervised? How to evaluate the internships? Moreover, at the first meeting strategies on how to spread the results should be worked out together. At the staff training there will be a meeting with colleagues who support internships to compare theory and practice. Nevertheless, the project partners are responsible for the regional implementation of the project results. The project coordinator will inform the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education about the project outcomes. As a result, there will be improved instruments to support internships in the project countries and a report about the project outcomes. In a follow-up project we could publish a handbook/manual for internships.
Background in Austria: a catalogue of competencies for VET schools was created and offered to schools; this was not specifically designed for internships though. Therefore in 2016 there was a working group at the Ministry of Education whose task it was to work out a further catalogue of competencies for various internships at VET schools. However, there has never been any obligation for schools to make use of this catalogue; it should be handled as a mere suggestion. Furthermore, it was also unknow to what extend such tools exist in other European countries. That's what "Qualiship" was founded for; it's main goal is to collect information on all kinds of evaluation tools and practices that exist on a European level, then compare them and, as a final step, collect best practice examples.These comparisons could lead to a follow-up KA1 project focusing on a document suggesting how to/ which criteria to standardize for internships; There were 4 partner countries that participated in "Qualiship": Austria acted as coordinator, the four partners are all related to VET institutions, some of them are even public schools. 1. LMC: this college in Lancaster offers all different kinds of formation for approximately 5000 students. They have their own department for evalution of internships. 2. COMUNIDAD DE MADRID: could be compared partly to Austria's "BHS" (secondary school type), partly to "Lehre" (apprenticeship). There are 5 big school clusters with a large variety of offers. The CEO of one of these clusters was our contact person. The organization and planning of the project included all CEOs, however, they could not all participate in the meetings. 3. MEDATLANTIA: is a consulting company in La Coruña, Spain, working on projects with education centers, also focusing on the topic of evalution, support and management of internships. 4. CONFARTIGIANATO VICENZA: is an umbrella organization for employers in this region of Italy, providing various education and further training service for them. Probably the most interesting and inspiring part of this constellation was the diversity. Each partner provided the project with different angles and aspects; partly based on the differences in the countries' education systems. This also meant though that quite an amount of time had to be invested in getting everybody up to date and familiarizing them with these different systems and approaches. Phases and activities: the project started in the autumn of 2017; the "Kick-Off Meeting took place in Austria (HLW Bad Ischl) in November 2017. The second meeting was set in Lancaster in April of 2018. Partners met in October 2018 for the LTTA in Madrid. The final meeting, focusing on evaluation and completion of the project took place in May 2019 in Vicenza. The meetings in more detail: At the first meeting in Bad Ischl *the project design was discussed once more in more detail *questions up for discussion concerning the comparison of the different systems for determining and managing the quality of internships were collected *tasks for the next meeting as well as for the project in general were distributed among the participants Until the 2nd meeting in Lancaster the partners were asked to work through the posed questions and unanswered questions were discussed again. In the second meeting the partners got familiarized with the educational system in the UK as well as with different tools used in supporting and managing internships (Who uses which instruments? How are results evaluated? Which criteria for support are of particular importance? How can we reduce the complexity of experience gained during internships?) Furthermore, the LTTA in Madrid was prepared. The 3rd meeting - LTTA - took place in Madrid. It was about evaluating all the tools shared and getting some concrete results, as well as the work on the final report. The 4th and final meeting in Vicenza focused once more on the research results. Results and effects: Spain -: Comparable evaluation tools (questionnaires) have been compiled - this did not exist before. 4 national and 6 regional meetings/events were held to present both the Erasmus project. 20 publications on social media. In Italy, the experience of the European partner organizations has been incorporated: in concrete terms, the evaluability and comparability of competence levels and skills as a whole have been adopted. There were no questionnaires on this either. – as the Italian partners were only fixated on technical professions. For the UK, the evaluation steps were followed by the exchange and comparison of the competence profiles for the trainee ships. Essential skills could thus be captured. In particular, the distinction between qualitative and quantitative content has greatly improved comparability and elaboration possibilities. The results are relevant in 184 courses with 2,840 students. For Austria, there was an evaluation of the competence grid by the additions of the partners.