Learning mobility is widely considered a key contributor to the enhancement of employability of young people through the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are not purely occupational but that, as stated by the EC, are «fundamental to success in life». Now more than ever new ways of working and more frequent changes in jobs call for a broader set of skills. Transversal skills are those relevant to find jobs and occupations in different fields from the present or past ones. (“Skills for the labour market” 2017). In the "Skills Revolution" when new roles emerge as fast as others become obsolete, employers realize that what you are likely to learn is becoming more important than what you already know. The Council Recommendation of 22/05/2018 on key competences for lifelong learning invites member states to raise “the level of personal, social and learning to learn competences” by promoting as well opportunities for young learners to undertake “at least one practical entrepreneurial experience during their school education”. Within the framework of Erasmus+ an ever-greater number of VET students embark every year on work-based learning mobility. However a joint effort is needed to make sure the impact of these learning experiences have on beneficiaries’ transversal skills awareness is fully deployed. Our project aims therefore at defining solutions to facilitate the activation of key soft skills during such short-term mobility experiences and therefore promoting a conjunct effort of enterprises, schools and training agencies working together on improving the design and overall implementation of short term VET mobility experiences with the sole objective of improving consistently the impact of such experiences on students and organizations. The project meets the strategic aim of enhancing the ability of students to manage their personal growth through a better awareness of themselves and their skills and it aims to provide students with an innovative learning model which supports the development and assessment of transversal skills in a specific learning situation: a short (lasting less than a month) term work-based learning experience abroad. Skills Act 4 VET will address the following questions: - How can transnational short-term work-based mobility experiences effectively ensure transversal skills activation among young participants? - Which transversal skills can be effectively activated through transnational short-term work-based mobility experiences? - How can schools and institutional actors involved in learning mobility projects facilitate soft skills activation? Direct target groups are VET students (aged 14-18) experiencing a short term mobility and their teachers preparing and supporting the overall implementation of the related activities. Overall the project aims at reaching directly over 2.000 students and 800 teachers. Skills Act 4 VET will move towards the following specific objectives: • To design a Transversal Skills Framework with a focus on transversal skills that students can reinforce and develop during short term work-based learning experiences abroad (Skills Act 4 VET identification tool); • To develop new and adapt existing tools, methods and resources for an effective preparation and modularised training programme for teachers promoting short term VET mobility projects, able to facilitate students’ awareness raising around their personal growth and skills set; • To define a methodology and tools (the Work-Based Tasks Map and the Skills Assessment App), that could become a widely used reference at European Level. The effective implementation of the project activities can only happen within a transnational context, with the active participation of qualified organisations showing an appealing compensating diversity and coming from Spain, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus. As the project name recalls, Skills Act 4 VET has the ambition to reshape the way short term mobility experiences are conceived allowing VET students to make the best of their learning mobility experience abroad by gaining a deeper personal awareness and understanding about their own transversal skills set. The Skills Act 4 VET project results will moreover constitute versatile transverable tools that could be further developed, embrasing a larger number of transversal skills or describing a different learning situation that the one chosed with this project.
Learning mobility is widely considered a key contributor to the enhancement of employability of young people through the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes that are not purely occupational but that, as stated by the EC, are «fundamental to success in life». Now more than ever new ways of working and more frequent changes in jobs call for a broader set of skills. Transversal skills are relevant to find jobs and occupations in any field. (Skills for the labour market, 2017). In the Skills Revolution when new roles emerge as fast as others become obsolete, employers realise that what you are likely to learn is becoming more important than what you already know. Within the framework of Erasmus+ an ever-greater number of VET students embark every year on work-based learning mobility and a joint effort is needed to make sure that the impact of these learning experiences have on beneficiaries’ transversal skills set awareness is fully deployed. Our project aims at addressing this “mismatch” and defining solutions to facilitate the activation of key soft skills during such short term (lasting less than a month) mobility experiences and therefore promoting a conjunct effort of enterprises, schools and training agencies.
As stated in European Semester Thematic 2017 Factsheet “Skills for the Labour Market” «currently 40% of employers report difficulties in finding people with the right skills, many of them stressing a lack of transversal skills». The Bruges Communiqué highlights the “need to improve the capacity of VET to respond to the changing requirements of the labour market”. SkillsAct4VET project aims to empower young VET students to capitalize the benefit of a work-based learning mobility abroad by supporting them in the acquisition of knowledge skills and competences that are not purely occupational, but that, as stated by the EC, are “fundamental to success in life”. The communication “A new impetus for European cooperation in Vocational Education and Training to support the Europe 2020 strategy” states that “VET providers should use experience-based learning and expose learners to non-routine work and non-typical situations”. This was exactly one of the aims of Skills Act 4 VET – by promoting better preparation for mobility and adopting innovative training methods and tools, supporting transversal skills awareness, the project will contribute to shrink the skills mismatches.