“Dual ECOsystems – EU Alliances for ICT” project is promoted by a consortium of 7 partners from 4 different EU countries. The project partners, within the regional/statal Dual System in which they operate, have more or less informally created virtuous local "ecosystems" in the ICT sector to ensure effective local cooperation between the VET actors involved in the delivery of Dual training programmes, for the success of all (student/worker, companies, VET institutions). Such ecosystems normally involve: • VET institutions • Companies, Chambers and companies’ representation bodies • Workers' associations / Trade Unions • Universities • Accreditation and Certification bodies The project starts from the premise that within the partnership the partners have identified some cases of apparent good practices, that are success factors in the different Dual Systems of the countries involved, which guarantee the proper functioning of the ecosystems, in terms of: high quality of VET paths; raising the employability rate; effective work-based learning system; efficient skills certification system. “DUAL ECO” project will let partners observe and share good practices adopted in the 4 local “ecosystems”, confront together on them and evaluate which good practices have the potentiality to be transferred at European level; then, the partners will conduct an experimentation on some selected good practices, importing them into their local ecosystems and applying to existing VET Dual programmes, in order to evaluate the transferability of each good practice at a larger scale. To achieve this goal, the project will be articulated in 5 Short-term joint staff learning and training events: • one for each country involved (Italy, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom) – for staff of partners organizations (managers, teachers/trainers, tutors, researchers) - organized as Study Visits, combining on-site visits to relevant organizations, presentations, discussions, workshops and/or training courses. These activities will be aimed at studying the good practices implemented by each ecosystem, at sharing ideas and confronting on the models in place; • one in Italy - for staff of partners organizations (managers, teachers/trainers, tutors, researchers) – organized as Training in participatory technique, managed by professional facilitators, that will combine peer discussions and workshops. This activity will let the partners exchange the good practices and confront among them on lessons learnt through the four study visits. At this stage, the partner organizations must learn from each other in order to create a “Dual ECOsystems” model, including a set of good practices that can be transferred at EU level, taking into account the different national contexts. The model will be reported in an Handbook, drafted by the partner organizations and containing “good practices and methods for effective Dual ECOsystems”. Each local ecosystem selects the good practices to import. To evaluate their transferability, the good practices chosen will be applied in each partner “ecosystem” on a local Dual VET ICT programme (involving associated partners from the countries): • In Italy on “Junior System Administrator - IFTS in Apprendistato” (level IV EQF) – duration 1-year course, at Engim Lombardia – starting in October/November 2022 • In Spain on “Specialization VET Programme on Cybersecurity” (level VI EQF) – duration 1-year course, at Maristak - starting in September 2022 • In Germany on 2nd-year training of “Higher Education Apprenticeships Programme” on ICT (level VII EQF), at ITB Bremen – starting in September 2022 • In United Kingdom on 1st-year training of “Higher Education Apprenticeships Programme” on ICT (level V EQF), at Belfast Metropolitan College – starting in September 2022 Once set the good practices to be evaluated, the partnership will agree on general and specific “evaluation indicators”. Each local ecosystem will run an on-going evaluation on the effectiveness of the good practices applied. At the end of the programmes, a “Final evaluation on the effectiveness of the good practices applied” will be held by each local ecosystem. On the basis of the evaluation outcomes, each local ecosystem will draft a brief report on “Evaluation on the transferability of the good practices applied”, in order to improve the final version of the Handbook. The latest release of the Handbook can be shared in all UE national context for the application of good and transferable practices of the model developed (Dissemination of the project results).
DUAL ECO project had the General Objective (GO) to increase the quality in VET at European level. In order to pursue this GO, the ecosystems needed to: • Better match qualifications (skills provided) to labour market emerging needs, through a cooperation between VET providers and companies (or companies’ representation bodies) that lead to “skills anticipation”, • Support learners to be engaged (and re-engaged) into relevant education and training pathways, providing an organized system of career guidance activities, • Design Dual VET training programmes that met the skills requirements emerged and provide “flexible” VET pathways of high quality (according to the Council Recommendations 2018/C 153/01), • Support companies in acquiring the ability to evaluate the skills acquired on-the-job (training for companies’ trainers/tutors) for an effective work-based learning system. Through the project activities, the consortium was able to achieve its objectives. Observing good practices, choosing which ones to try to transfer, transferring them and evaluating transferability were the main actions carried out by the partners and through the handbook we were able to document what was seen and done during the project
The consortium assumed that the project fits coherently to the sectoral priority “VET: Developing partnerships aimed at promoting work-based learning in all its forms” as DUAL ECO aims to evaluate the transferability of selected good practices of effective cooperation in Dual training, existing in local VET ecosystems (SO - Specific Objective). Therefore, the project was built to give the consortium members the opportunity to apply knowledge in practical workplace situations. Through DUAL ECO project, the consortium aimed to bring more efficiency and flexibility into local VET ECOsystems, and improved their cooperation in order to better implement the requirements contained in the “Council Recommendation on a European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeships inside the national Dual VET Systems involved. Within the different projects carried out by the consortium of partners, the objectives set and the needs related to the confrontation that the different partners had on issues related to the functioning of different European IT ecosystems were met. Furthermore, through the possibility of transferring good practices into ICT, it was possible to increase the quality of services within each organisation and, at the same time, foster a correct analysis of ecosystems by working on weak points