The employability of young people is a concern in many EU Member States, especially in Southern and Eastern Europe. In many countries, including Greece, Bulgaria, Latvia, Spain and Cyprus, VET graduates are unemployed or they are working in jobs irrelevant with their studies. Good quality information about what VET graduates do after leaving education and training, how they use the knowledge, skills and competences they gained, is essential to understand both the causes of employability problems and the success factors in particular regions, economic sectors or for graduates from particular VET institutes and disciplines. Tracking VET students and graduates and providing feedback and input to the quality assurance system of the VET provider is also one of the main gaps in the implementation of EQAVET. IRCD, the project applicant is a research and education facility of the Technical University of Košice. Project partners are IDEC (training consulting company with extensive experience in European projects), IEK DELTA (Vocational Training Institute of post-secondary education), NAVET (National VET authority from Bulgaria), Eurofortis (not-for-profit organisation working in training field, personal and professional competence development), 3s (leading educational research organisations in Austria), Intercollege (private college offering a wide range of Vocational Educational and Training (VET) study programs (Higher Education/VET) to students in Cyprus), P.I.T. (a subsidized private VET and secondary school in the Basque Region), and Q-Impulz (non-governmental non-for-profit training and research organization). On Track” project will contribute to skills needs identification, gathering relevant data from VET graduates. The project “On Track” will develop, evaluate and put in use a VET graduates tracking system for graduates of initial vocational education and training schools and institutes. The specific objectives of the project are: To analyse, in depth, the context and need in each country. To develop a tracking system for VET graduates at institute level that will feed into the quality assurance system of the VET provider To pilot test and implement the tracking system, establish tracking mechanism and integrate it, in VET monitoring processes. To support VET providers to establish the tracking mechanism and integrate it into their quality assurance system. The target groups of the project are VET schools and institutes providing secondary (EQF levels 3-4) and post-secondary (EQF level 5) initial VET as well as institutes providing further VET courses. The main results of the project will be: O1. Context study of tracking systems and measures The study will be used as a starting point to analyse the national context, to identify indicators that have to be included in the tracking system, specific needs to be addressed and potential challenges. The context study will be performed at national level and the results will be compiled in a transnational study and will be the basis for the development of the tracking system. O2. Tracking system for VET graduates At the core of the tracking system is a tracking survey addressed to VET graduates that will gather data related to further education, employment, career paths, skills and competences required in the labour market and other relevant information. We will develop a model tracking survey that will be adapted to the specific needs of each VET provider that will implemented. The tracking survey will be developed in two different open source survey tools, so that each VET provider can choose the one that can be better integrated within their IT system. Apart from the tracking survey, the tracking system will include methodologies and mechanisms for preparing, managing and administrating the survey, evaluation of the results, keeping registry of graduates. O3. Guide: Implement tracking system and integrate it into organisation quality assurance system A guide for VET providers will support them to implement the tracking system and integrate it into their quality assurance system. The guide will address VET providers that want to implement the tracking system with their own resources and will provide step by step methodological guidance. Other outputs that will contribute to project objectives and expected results are: C1. Learning activity: Establishing a tracking system for VET graduates. The learning activity will prepare project partners to implement the tracking system in the six selected VET providers and organise the pilot runs. 27 persons, three from each country will join the learning activity.
The employability of young people is a concern in the many EU Member States, especially in Southern and Eastern Europe. In many countries, including Greece, Bulgaria, Latvia, Spain, and Cyprus, VET graduates are unemployed or are working in jobs irrelevant to their studies. Good quality information about what VET graduates do after leaving education and training, how they use the knowledge, skills, and competences they gained, is essential to understand both the causes of employability problems and the success factors in particular regions, economic sectors, or for graduates from particular VET institutes and disciplines. Tracking VET students and graduates and providing feedback and input to the quality assurance system of the VET provider is also one of the main gaps in the implementation of EQAVET. TUKE, SLOVAKIA, the project applicant is a research and education facility of the Technical University of Košice. Project partners were IDEC (training consulting company with extensive experience in European projects), IEK DELTA (Vocational Training Institute of post-secondary education), NAVET (National VET authority from Bulgaria), Eurofortis (not-for-profit organisation working in training field, personal and professional competence development), 3s (leading educational research organization in Austria), Intercollege (private college offering a wide range of Vocational Educational and Training (VET) study programs (Higher Education/VET) to students in Cyprus), P.I.T. (a subsidized private VET and secondary school in the Basque Region), and ASTRA (non-governmental non-for-profit training and research organization). On Track” project contributed to skills needs identification, gathering relevant data from VET graduates. The project “On Track” developed, evaluated, and put in use a VET graduates tracking system for graduates of VET providers at different levels (from EQF level 2 till EQF level 7). The specific objectives of the project were: -To analyze, in-depth, the context, and need in each country. -To develop a tracking system for VET graduates at the institute level that will feed into the quality assurance system of the VET provider -To pilot test and implement the tracking system, establish a tracking mechanism, and integrate it, in VET monitoring processes. -To support VET providers to establish the tracking mechanism and integrate it into their quality assurance system. The target groups of the project were VET schools and institutes providing secondary, post-secondary and HE levels education as well as institutes providing further VET courses. The main results of the project are: O1. Context study of tracking systems and measures The study was used as a starting point to analyze the national context, to identify indicators that have to be included in the tracking system, specific needs to be addressed, and potential challenges. The context study was performed at the national level and the results were compiled in a transnational study and created the basis for the development of the tracking system. O2. Tracking system for VET graduates At the core of the tracking system was a tracking survey addressed to VET graduates that gathered data related to further education, employment, career paths, skills, and competencies required in the labor market and other relevant information. The model tracking survey was developed and adapted to the specific needs of each VET provider that implemented it or wish to implement it in the future. The tracking survey was developed in two different open-source survey tools (Google Docs and LimeSurvey) so each VET provider can choose the one that can be better integrated within their IT system. The tracking system includes a technical manual on how to implement a survey using Google Docs or LimeSurvey. O3. Guide: Implement a tracking system and integrate it into the organization quality assurance system A guide for VET providers was developed which supports VET providers to implement the tracking system and integrate it into their quality assurance system. The guide addresses VET providers that want to implement the tracking system with their own resources and provides step by step methodological guidance. Apart from the tracking survey, the tracking system includes methodologies and mechanisms for preparing, managing, and administrating the survey, evaluating the results, keeping a registry of graduates which is a part of the Guide. Other outputs that contributed to project objectives and expected results are: C1. Learning activity: Establishing a tracking system for VET graduates. The learning activity prepared project partners to implement the tracking system and organize the pilot runs. 27 persons joined the learning activity.