Project description

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Vocational education is perceived as “occupations-specific education and training geared towards securing a supply of skilled labour” (CEDEFOP). Daily we hear of ‘skills gaps’ - the mismatch between skills supply and demand in the labour market. The problem cannot be solved by the education alone, but vocational education is one of the key activities tasked with supplying an answer.

THE PROBLEM

VET schools simultaneously have to meet two opposing requirements: to remain true to tradition, delivering stable, tested knowledge approved by relevant parties in society and the economy; and to equip students with a set of skills and competencies relevant to newly emerging demands.
Despite great efforts by national and European policy makers to drive VET schools into ‘rethinking’ their curricula and teaching methods, changes have been slow to keep up with labour market requirements. In most European countries VET qualifications are based on standard curricula that precisely define what is taught, leaving little freedom for teachers and schools to train for just-in-time labour market demands. Most systems also have lengthy and complex accreditation procedures, so the approval of a new curriculum - or even the modification of an existing one – can take a long time.

AIMS

The project aims to provide effective and necessary training and support for VET teachers to enable them to identify and respond to skill-gaps in the labour market, but also involving other relevant stakeholders - students, parents, teaching staff, and particularly employers experiencing difficulties finding skilled workers to fill vacancies.

OBJECTIVES

The consortium will develop, test and deliver standardized, comprehensive toolkits packaged as a set of teaching, collaboration, and communication methods and a rapid curriculum development methodology for VET teachers, to be used in conjunction with potential employers to identify skill-gaps, and to design, develop and deliver up-skilling training for students.
The toolkit will be tested within the IT sector, but the standardized version will be equally applicable to other vocational education subjects.

PARTNERSHIP

The consortium comprises seven partners from four countries - European vocational schools, organizations and companies, with the core aim of using the capabilities of the partners to transform VET into being ‘labour market responsive’. As pilots will be focused on IT occupations, the consortium includes schools and companies from the IT sector.

IMPACT

The experience and best practices of the consortium will be captured in two main products.

1. The Reacti-VET Training Package for Teachers will be available online in 4 languages. it will:
   • be accredited
   • contribute to the professional development of teachers
   • help teachers to transform traditional teaching using creative and innovative contemporary methods
   • develop teacher competencies to embrace the potential of open educational resources in the rapid development of short, up-skilling training
   • train teachers in effective collaboration, both inside and outside the school
   • support students to take more responsibility for their own learning performance and processes
   • develop 21st century skills and key competencies of students.
2. Reacti-VET Upskilling Training will be tested within the IT sector, but the generic ethodology will be applicable to other fields of vocational education.

   The impact will be:

   • to help reduce skills-gaps;
   • to better position students in the labor market;
   • to increase SME access to a large, skilled workforce able to respond to new and fast changing demands in a competitive job market.

RESULTS

Five intellectual outcomes are planned, all of which will be produced by a community of people from schools and business. The five intellectual products support TWO main RESULTS of the project:

1. Reacti-VET training package for teachers, with content developed in 6 modules and in four languages (English, Estonian, Hungarian, Italian)
   • Reacti-VET training package for teachers (content development)
   • Upskilling training for teachers (pilot)
   • Standardization & accreditation
2. Reacti-VET upskilling taining and methodology
   • Design and implementation of Reacti-VET upskilling training: involving teachers, students, companies and schools to identify skill-gaps in selected occupations, to collaboratively design upskilling curricula, and to collaborate on content development using open educational resources
   • Responsive VET driven by teachers designing and developing an upskilling course for students, organising project-based exams, developing the Reacti-VET methodology, scheduling the training, and establishing an online platform for delivery

PROJECT BASICS

Title: Teachers for Reactive and Responsive Vocational Education
Acronym: Reacti-VET
Project ID: 2018-1-HU01-KA202-047816
Program: Erasmus+ KA2
Project Type: Strategic Partnership
Target group: VET teachers
Beneficiaries: VET students, employers
Participant countries: HU, IT, UK, EE
Project start: 1 September 2018.
Project end: 28 February 2021.

PROJECT PARTNERS

iTStudy Hungary Ltd. (HU)- lead partner
AICA - Associazione Italiana Informatica e Calcolo Automatico (IT)
Fondazione ITS per le nuove tecnologie del Made in Italy – Jobsacademy (IT)
BCS Koolitus AS (EE)
SZÁMALK-Szalézi Szakgimnázium (HU)
Veszprémi Szakképzési Centrum Öveges József Szakgimnáziuma, Szakközépiskolája és Kollégiuma (HU)
CAPDM (UK)