Developing a skilled workforce is one of the European employment policy guidelines and part of the Europe 2020 Strategy. The demographic change and the ageing of the workforce could create a shortage of skilled workers in the near future. For some sectors this has already been a reality.
The promotion of lifelong learning is at the heart of EU education and employment policy. The EU objective “New Skills for new jobs” highlights the need to update, upgrade and widening the skills of people’s skill portfolio to create and fill the jobs of tomorrow. European Union adopted on 22 May 2018 a revised recommendation on key competences for lifelong learning. Key competences are a dynamic combination of the knowledge, skills and attitudes a learner needs to develop throughout life, starting from early age onwards. The key competences are developed in a lifelong learning perspective, from early childhood throughout adult life, and through formal, non-formal and informal learning in all contexts, including family, school, workplace, neighbourhood and other communities. Social inclusion is also part of the European Union’s objectives in terms of economic growth and employment.
To support social inclusion and employment EU is promoting an innovative concept – the social economy, which is a participative and collaborative economy and can produce inclusive economic development. The work-integration initiatives within the social economy called Work Integration Social Enterprises (WISEs), are autonomous economic entities whose main objective is the professional integration of people with serious difficulties in the labour market.
Using this EU approach this project intends to develop an innovative model to evaluate pre-existing competencies and create training content offering Key competences combined with work based activities meant to raise the level of employability of vulnerable people.
The model will be based on a transnational partnership, including 7 organization in 5 countries: UK, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Romania, committed to work together and share their own training experiences and resources. Each organization will target its own vulnerable group depending on the each country social context. , UK will target women Low skilled & migrants. For the Netherlands the target group will be early school leavers while the target group chosen by Italy is made up of women in vulnerable situations and migrants & refugees. Romanian and Spanish partners will target mainly Roma & low skilled people.
More specifically the project partnership proposes an innovative learning approach as well as practical solutions to combat unemployment of vulnerable people and facilitate their insertion on the labor market.
The transnational approach will enhance access to learning experiences to the Adult educators in each country improving their ability to address the needs of their beneficiaries. The diversity of the target groups in each country will offer opportunities to learn more about vulnerable groups training approaches in each country and find common solutions to social inclusion. The project introduces some innovative approaches, which combined, will lead to a greater impact of learning tools for vulnerable groups.
- Main project’s objectives:
- Develop innovative learning approach combining interactive training and work based learning,
- Develop Adult Educators’ competences to develop training content offering key skills competences
- Establish an on-line network for adult educators, trainers and mentors to share e-learning resources, experience and best practices in work based settings to facilitate long-term transnational collaboration and support the sustainability of project outputs
- Strengthen cooperation and networking between different partner organizations carrying out educational activities.
- Expected Results
- A methodology for evaluation of pre-existent basic competences that could not been validated previously
- A curricula that combines basic skills training with work-based learning in social enterprises or small private enterprises to raise employability of learners
- An e-learning training course for Adult Educators to develop their competences in assisting vulnerable groups insertion on the labour market
- A Tutors’ Guide that can be transferable to other organizations outside the project partnership
The on-line platform of collaboration for adult educators to allow all experts, learners and staff involved in this project to continue communication and resources sharing, supporting the project goals during the project and after its lifetime, contributing to the project sustainability and further development of the project partnership.