3Es for youths in VET: Engagement, Empowerment, Employability Erasmus Project

Project Title

3Es for youths in VET: Engagement, Empowerment, Employability

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

The project ‘3Es for youths in VET: Engagement, Empowerment, Employability’ focused on providing adequate programmes and courses for students who were disengaged by compulsory education and for whom vocational education can be a ‘second chance’ opportunity. The programmes of study compiled were various in nature tackling both soft skills that would help them in their studies but also other skills directly linked to employment. A total of five organisations took part in this project. These institutions from Malta, Scotland, Germany and the Netherlands have a profile of ‘School/Institute/Educational centre – Vocational Training (secondary level)’ while the fifth participant is an Institution from England (U.K.) with a profile of ‘School/Institute/Educational centre – Adult education’.

The project had three main Intellectual Outputs:
1. Distinctive Characteristics: Development of customised Communication Programme and Pastoral Care Programme. Indeed this output involved producing the above mentioned programmes targeting soft skills of students. Once produced these programmes were reviewed within the partnership piloted twice and also reviewed to produce the final outcome
2. Curriculum Development: Development of curricula and key competences for specialist programmes related to vocational fields according to the local context, following research and identification of skills gaps, developing of learning content for potential students & lecturing staff and assessment strategies. Through the partnership the following programmes were produced and reviewed within the partnership;

MCAST: Three new awards of study in the following areas: (Retail, Hospitality, gardening & pet-care) It can be proudly said that two of these programmes have
already been implemented in the scholastic year 2018/19

Havering College: One new programme of study called the LINKS programme which deals directly with disengaged students being given a taster of other
vocational areas in different parts of the scholastic year within the college to help decide what they would like to study in the future

AFBB: No new programmes were produced but they did give input in the review of the programmes for all colleges and also translated the mcast programmes as well. They also started adopting credit system in place at other colleges.

Forth Valley College developed new units in the correct format as highlighted by the partnership

3. Development/Upgrade of MOODLE system for students & staff at the Learning Support Unit at MCAST. Through review, design, development and testing & implementation, a MOODLE system was setup to help organise administrative work, facilitate sharing of resources and improve student access. In this case Havering College acted as a consultant to MCAST throughout the project due to its vast experience in using this system.

Apart from the above mentioned methods, training events for staff on Attitudes, Teaching Methods & Techniques as well as Design & Evaluation of Curricula were organised. This project is expected to improve student retention rate especially at lower levels, help students develop stronger citizenship skills, multicultural awareness and employability skills hence increasing students’ chances of full employment and/or further education. Indeed this project has served as a very good learning curve for staff of the five institutions involved. It has also improved the learning support offered by these institutions and through this project a very good working relationship has developed.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 172258 Eur

Project Coordinator

MALTA COLLEGE OF ARTS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY & Country: MT

Project Partners

• HAVERING COLLEGE OF FURTHER AND HIGHER EDUCATION
• Friesland College Stichting voor Algemeen Voortgezet Onderwijs, Beroepsonderwijs en Volwasseneneducatie
• Forth Valley College of Further and Higher Education
• Akademie für berufliche Bildung gGmbH