ArtS project will exploit the Cultural and Creative Sectors (CCS) potential for creating growth and jobs and enhance cultural economy at regional and transnational levels. It shall define and forecast labour market needs in the CCS in Greece, Italy and Spain; design appropriate teaching and training methodologies and deliver a joint training programme that will respond to these needs. These objective will be pursued through the following activities:a) the development of a VET curriculum that is outcome-oriented and responds to specific skill-shortages in the creative and cultural sectors market, b) the facilitation of networking and labour mobility in the CCS, c) the innovation of the VET sector through the implementation of an original training programme that will be based on flexible learning methods, tailored to the needs of the end-users. The joint vocational training programme will provide low-skilled, unemployed and self-employed artists with the opportunity to:• Update their professional skills and knowledge and acquire management, business and networking skills, with a special focus on export possibilities, • guide them into finding work or internship at a company of their choice, • present their work in a joint project at the project closure that will be prepared by the learners themselves, as an exercise of effective networking. The project will cover the following areas a) Craft, b) Cultural Heritage, c) Design, d) Music, e) Visual arts, f) Literary arts g) Performing arts. It will be implemented in accordance with the EQF/ECVET and EQAVET standards and will produce and adopt Open Educational Resources in four European languages. The ArtS consortium consists of diverse organizations, experts in their fields. Diversity is an asset in creating an innovative yet targeted training programme and in ensuring the project’s impact, sustainability and dissemination. Throughout its implementation the project will ensure equality of opportunity.For more information visit the web page: http://arts-project.eu/
The ArtS – Skills for the Creative Economy Project, following a waterfall approach, managed to identify current skill needs and shortages in the Cultural and Creative Sector (CCS) of Greece, Italy, and Spain, and develop a modern, flexible training programme that corresponds to those findings. Based on the results of the mapping and the needs assessment analysis of the CCS, the VET partners of ArtS designed nine modules, three of which address common needs (Business Administration, Entrepreneurial Skills and Social Entrepreneurship, Networking/Digital and Media Communication), while the rest six target sector-specific shortages (Craft, Cultural Heritage, Literary Arts, Multimedia and Audiovisual, Performing Arts, Visual Arts). All modules were designed according to the EQF/ECVET framework and are to be certified under the International Standard ISO 17024:2012 for Certification of Personnel Qualifications (pending approval of Hellenic Accreditation system, (ESYD)). The ArtS training programme is freely available in the ArtS Learning online platform (http://www.arts-project.eu/elearning/login/index.php), that will remain fully functional for five years after the Project’s end. In the same framework, the ArtS portal (http://arts-project.eu/) will, also, remain operable and updated for the same time period, as it has been proven very popular among the target group (more than 8300 unique visits), who seem to prefer it for getting informed about the project, interacting with each other through the featured ArtS Forum, and catching up with the latest news in the CCS.During the ArtS implementation period, more than 2000 people expressed their interest in participating in the ArtS training, either by registering to the Project’s platform or by filling in a relevant application (through Dropbox) that was used before the launch of the platform. The VET partners delivered the ArtS curricula through blended learning to 928 trainees in total, for both training rounds in all three consortium countries (Greece, Italy and Spain). A relevant certification procedure was, also, carried out and trainees had the opportunity to get certified as Cultural and Creative Sector Project Specialists (CCSP Specialists), a qualification that can surely contribute to the improvement of their employability potential. As this is one of the key objectives of the Project – to match labour market needs and improve employability of the CCS – the ArtS partnership assisted 352 trainees to find an internship, work or collaboration, providing them with the opportunity to put in practice their acquired through ArtS knowledge and skills, and gain useful professional experience to start or progress their careers.To ensure the quality of the ArtS’ results and activities, a quality assurance process was running in parallel with the Project’s implementation procedures. In brief, the quality assurance measures included internal and external evaluation (by the established Focus Group and Expert Advisory Board), biannual evaluation of Work Packages’ progress, and peer reviewing of results. As a result of this continuous process, the produced outcomes were of high quality, thus facilitating dissemination and exploitation activities, always in accordance with the elaborated Dissemination and Exploitation Strategies, respectively.