VET systems need a radical renovation to be competitive. In fact, it is clear that: -Young people need to acquire specific competences to be successful in the world of work; -It is necessary to address and prevent the Early School Leaving (ESL) problem, as well as the lack of key competences among young people; Indeed, according to the Riga Conclusions (June 2015), key competences must be strengthened and made more effective and fruitful in I-VET programme. At the end of the I-VET pathways, every student should have acquired the basic competences needed in a knowledge based society (8 key competences established by the EU). The UTC (http://www.utcolleges.org) approach seems to be capable of addressing these challenges. In these schools knowledge and skills are acquired through the resolution of real problems or projects. Their approaches deliver an innovative training concept, which is able to narrow the gap between knowledge and competences acquired at school and those required by the companies.. The aim is to tackle and solve the Early School Leaving problem, and to increase the competences of each student during IVET programmes. The possibility to reach these excellent results has been possible thanks to innovative methodologies and by re-thinking spaces, times and learning approaches. Each UTC is backed by employers and a local university who work with staff to develop an innovative curriculum that gives students first-hand experience of what life is like after school, also integrating three types of learning: technical, practical and academic. A UTC curriculum includes one or two technical specialisms, which are linked to the skills gaps in the region. All the aspects of these colleges are built around a specific methodology called PiXL Edge, namely a model that gives students the possibility to develop skills useful for the rest of their lives and for their future professional activity (Leadership, Organisation, Communication, Initiative and Resilience). The project aims at supporting the renovation of VET systems in Europe with the ultimate goal of tackling Early School Leaving and increasing the employability of youngsters while fostering their active role in the society. In order to reach this objective, the project intends to further strength the key and technical-professional competences of young people attending the VET pathways, analyzing and adapting the English UTC model to the Italian / German / Spanish context. In this way the project tries to provide an answer to a common issues faced by European VET system: a) increase the level of key competences among the youngsters and reduce the skills gap; b) promote new partnership and WBL organizational models/approaches The idea is to transfer the English model to training realities in other countries to face the training gap and the ESL. On one side there will be the provider partners (schools from the UK) that will transfer their successful models and, on the other side, the user partners that will study these models and try to adapt these good practices to their national contexts. The project aims at analysing the UTC model, with its theoretical and practical features, and it fulfils the following goals: 1. Elaboration of a model (organizational and educational variables) transferable to all contexts. 2. Transfer this model and adapt it to VET centres in other countries implementing new training pathways in professional sectors by combining national standards and the innovative aspects of UTC model 3. Test and validate the model 4. Monitoring and evaluating the learning outcomes
The project aimed to contribute to the renovation of VET systems with the ultimate goal of fighting early school leaving and increasing the employability of young people and encouraging their active role in society. In order to address this broad and challenging issue, the partnership decided to focus on some specific priorities that, according to the organisations that joined the partnership, could contribute to solve the problem. These priorities were: (a) strengthening the key competencies of young people in order to reduce the skills gap between the competencies required by the world of work and those provided by educational systems. In fact, it is now widely accepted, and scientifically supported, that strong key competencies are essential to be competitive in a fast-changing labour market; b) promote partnerships and organizational models for WBL approaches that bring young people closer to the world of work. The project aimed to achieve these objectives by analysing and adapting to the Italian, Spanish and German contexts a school model present in the United Kingdom (UTCs). In other words, the idea pursued by the partnership was to transfer an organizational pedagogical model, which had proven to be effective in combating early school leaving and in the transfer of skills required by the labour market, and turn it into good practice for other European countries. ESW project was based on a scientifically established methodology that consisted of the study of an identified good practice (UTC model), its adaptation to other contexts, conducting a trial and an evaluation phase and disseminate the final results. The method was particularly effective because it involved the transfer of an existing practice from a partner provider (UTC Warrington) to other partner users (4 vocational training institutions operating in 3 countries - Italy, Germany and Spain - beneficiaries of the good practice). The task of the user partners was to study/adapt the model to their local contexts in order to make it work. Starting from this approach, the project was divided into 4 main phases and each phase realized a specific Intellectual Output. STEP 1 The first step was to develop a transferability model of UTC English schools, including organizational, pedagogical and didactical dimensions. This phase produced IO1, a document that explains the model of UTCs and supported the Institutions to replicate it in their local contexts. PHASE 2 The second phase aimed at transferring the model and adapting it in VET centers in other countries by designing training paths (modules/curriculum) per sector and professional profile combining national standards and innovative elements of the UTC model. Tools and supporting materials were created in order to support partners in designing new training paths starting from the UTC model. The goal was to create operative tools that partners could test in an initial pilot phase and then during the official trial phase. This phase produced the IO2 that contains operational tools and a comprehensive explanation of how it was possible to define a) a framework of transversal and employability competencies b) a format for the design of the new curriculum. STEP 3 After having developd a transferability model (IO1) and a methodological framework (IO2), partners focused on the trial phase, whose objective was to test the model in some selected VET centers. In this phase each partner had to implement, following the instructions of IO1 and the tools provided in IO2, specific training modules involving the final users (in total about 160 students were involved). Training paths/modules have been designed for several sectors/professional profiles combining national standards and innovative elements of UTC model. PHASE 4 This activity consisted in monitoring and evaluating the results and was transversal to the whole project. An output was produced that analyses the overall project results, the on-going evaluation, and a comparative analysis of the results achieved. Other tangible results obtained from the project were: - Dedicated website - 6 Project newsletters - 5 Dissemination events - 2 LTTA (26 VET staff involved) In terms of results, it can be said that the partner users have been able to deal with an organizational-didactic model really different from what they were accustomed to and that has led to changes in the teaching methodology within the institutions with a "deconstruction of traditional teaching" to make room for a teaching model focused on the solution of real problems / projects. The project has also significantly strengthened the capacities of some partners to collaborate in a more consistent way, to act at EU level and to develop an internationalization strategy.