“Learning through experience is one of the fundamental rules of sustained learning.” The ICSAS project (“Integrating companies in a Sustainable Apprenticeship System“) aims to give countries with no experience in work-based learning the opportunity to get a first-hand practical impression how this training system works. The sector chosen for this project is the footwear industry. Emphasis is placed on two aspects: Firstly, the apprentices and the participating companies will enrol in a piloting phase of one year, a long enough duration to make a profound and significant experience. A second focus is set on the role of tutors: How can this central figure in work-based learning be prepared and assisted? ICSAS is rooted in precursor projects which particularly prepared the theoretical background. ICSAS now tackles the question of how to implement work-based learning respectively a dual training system in practice by proposing a one year pilot phase. During the pilot, footwear producing companies and the selected trainees in Portugal and Romania are given the opportunity to gather practical experience how to organise work-based learning in the workplace and on top of that – at least for a major part – in the running production process. The German partners in the project provide insight into how work-based learning and the dual training system in German footwear companies work, and so do the partners from Spain, where a different dual VET system is in place. However, the objective is not to impose straight grafts: Each country will be able to adapt the dual training system to its own existing structures and requirements. Beforehand, a curriculum for the pilot period will be developed and matched with alternating VET school phases. It is important to involve all potential partners beyond apprentices, companies and VET schools: Also the trade unions as well as the Chamber of Commerce and the political deciders need to stay closely involved and informed about each planned and executed project phase. Before the pilot starts, the tutors need to be prepared for their new role. ICSAS will therefore create training material to prepare the tutors. It will be based on concrete workplace analyses which will set the framework of what needs to be communicated in work-based learning and what needs to be manually practised at each workplace. The material will be rounded off by didactic and pedagogical parts. Even in Germany, where the dual training system in the footwear industry has been introduced decades ago, no publicly accessible sector-specific tutor training material exists. The fact that one of the ICSAS outputs will close this gap is worth of being regarded as an innovation. With the increasing popularity of collaborative learning in the workplace, many companies are now looking toward methods that involve collaborating with experienced older employees and giving trainees more of a hands-on approach. Collaborative learning is extremely helpful because it uses past experiences from prior employees to help new trainees get over different challenges. In other words: work-based learning is a form of knowledge management within companies and should be imparted according to certain standards. The ICSAS project will contribute to this by accentuating the role of tutors. The positive impacts which the project consortium desires to achieve are manifold: to enhance training sustainability, the quality of the product as well as of the workforce, to promote personal development of individuals, to achieve improved recognition of VET qualifications in this sector in Europe and finally to strengthen the competitiveness of the European footwear industry as a whole. Project will deliver additionally a Sector Qualification Framework (SQF) for industrial shoe-production, including the referencing of existing national qualifications from DE, PT, ES, and RO. The establishment of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) and of many National Qualification Frameworks (NQF) can be considered as a valuable step towards better transparency and recognition and as a blueprint for concrete applications for qualifications, sectors, and companies. Due to the (inherent) broad- and openness of EQF/NQF, adaption to a chosen sector increases user-friendliness; adapting descriptors to sector-specific skills offers innovative opportunities for individual certificate holders as well as for companies, searching for new employees. Up till now, no such SQF for shoe sector exists, the expected impact is a better comparability of qualifications of participating countries and SQF possesses a very high transfer potential; once established, qualifications from other countries can be easily referenced.
Dual Vocational Education and Training (VET) or apprenticeship schemes as a promising approach to overcome economic crisis in south Europe and to accelerate economic speed-up of former socialist states in East Europe are since years high on the agenda of European (e. g. European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeships) and national policies. Consequently a manifoldness of approaches and projects have been started to support Work-Based Learning (WBL) in “all of its forms”, for a comprehensive overview see for example webpage WBL-toolkit (https://www.wbl-toolkit.eu). But when having a closer look at these approaches it has to be stated that many of them are rather far away from “real” apprenticeship schemes; most measures are internships, learning projects, simulations, etc. – and lack of sustainability after the end of projects` funding. To discern our approach from internships or learning projects, we refer to “curricula-driven WBL”. In our ERASMUS+ project “Integrating Companies in a Sustainable Apprenticeship System” (ICSAS) we worked (beside others) on the question, under which circumstances a successful curricula-driven WBL-pilot of 1 year can be integrated into the formal VET-regulations of Portugal (PT) and Romania (RO). Another approach on policy level to increase linkage between VET and the labour markets have been Qualification Frameworks (QF). To achieve transparency and comparability of qualifications, National Qualification Frameworks (NQF) were established in the European countries and have been connected to the European Qualification Framework (EQF). In the last years already many papers were published, arguing that general Qualification Frameworks, might they claim national or transnational relevance, are somehow nothing but “a paradigmatic case of travelling educational reforms” (quoted from Bohlinger 2019). On the other hand, some evidence that Sector Qualifications Frameworks (SQF) could be of added value for enhanced transparency of qualifications in the respective sector has been published. Against this background, we have drawn three conclusions for our research and development project: • To include “sustainability” not only as a flowery phrase – but as a core element in our approach. • To try to stop “travelling” of QF via giving an anchor in the form of a Sector Qualification Framework (SQF). • And thus; consequently, to focus on one sector; only: Industrial shoe production. Our project worked on the following questions: • What could be learnt in real work-processes? • What should be learnt in real work-processes? • What are the supporting or hindering factors of including curricula-driven WBL in the governing of national VET-Systems? • Is there any added value by Sector Qualification Frameworks (exemplarily)? We found no “objective” or “hard” barriers for developing apprenticeships in countries with traditionally school-based VET; but a row of “subjective” or “weak” factors, like scepticism about quality of Learning Outcomes (LO) from curricula-driven WBL, concerns that apprentices are exploited as cheap work-force, uncertainties about roles of involved stakeholders, etc.. Despite these factors, we successfully designed, implemented and piloted a one-year lasting curricula-driven WBL in Portugal and Romania, in both countries a couple of learners benefitted and some dozens of skilled workers were trained for their role as WBL tutors. These curricula became part of the official apprenticeship career pathways in the Romanian region of Iasi and colleagues are negotiating with the other regions and national authorities about a broader implementation. In Portugal, ICSAS-curriculum became the core of a new national VET profile in shoe sector that is currently (autumn 2020) in the process of being developed and approved. Apart from this, we developed a SQF (level 2-4); a mapping of the PT, RO, ES and DE qualifications from industrial shoe production with the potential of a benefit for holders of qualifications from the sector of industrial shoe production. The SQF is open for the leveling of qualifications from other countries. All products and their linkage to the different Intellectual outputs (IO) are published under the result-tab of the project website http://icsas-project.eu/results/. Default language setting is English (EN). The language versions of the products in Romanian (RO), Portuguese (PT), Spanish (ES) or German (DE) can be consulted via choosing the corresponding flag in the right corner of the top menu.