Imprinting quality to entrepreneurship education – IN-QUAL Erasmus Project

Project Title

Imprinting quality to entrepreneurship education – IN-QUAL

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Assurance; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The project aims to address the challenge toward the improvement of quality assurance mechanism in Vocational Education and Training, most particularly in the field of entrepreneurship education in continuing VET. In order to achieve that the project foresees the application of the European Quality Assurance Reference Framework in this particular sector, through its adaptation on the particular needs of entrepreneurship education, not only at the level of the formal/informal/non formal training, but also for the on the job training path.
In order to achieve that the project wants to develop:
– recommendations and guidelines for a common framework of Quality Assurance
– definition of the entrepreneurship education Quality Manager profile
– creation of the tools, instruments and training contents needed for the Quality Manager
– awareness of the staff working in the entrepreneurship education providers’ organizations, toward the creation of a culture of Quality Assurance at all levels
The project is entrenched on two main concepts that aims to underpin with the view of raising awareness in VET providers of entrepreneurship education.
– Quality management as ‘hard’ concept based on facts, figures and measurement within the organisation.
– Quality culture as ‘soft’ concept, depending on prevailing attitudes and behaviour of individuals in the VET organisation.
The two concepts build on each other and their interaction function well when there is a professional Quality Manager as well as a committed and aware staff that can demonstrate quality oriented behaviour.
Participants to the project can be categorized in three groups:
1. Entrepreneurship education providers in CVET
2. Staff of the entrepreneurship education providers and most particularly managers
3. Entrepreneurship education providers as a whole considered together with the stakeholders they have, organizations collaborating with them, institutions, learners, businesses.
Project outputs will be:
O1 Guidelines for the implementation of a quality Assurance System in entrepreneurship education: to set the basis, tools and methodologies, not only for the development of the output itself but also for the other two that will be implemented after that.
O2 The Quality Manager: training plan, contents and tools: will provide the foundation for the development of the Quality Manager competences and skills. Moreover, all the results of this phase, as well as, the previous ones, will be integrated in an online platform that will be capable to provide at anytime and anywhere the necessary instruments.
O3 Recommendations for the implementation of Quality Assurance system in entrepreneurship education: basically the results of all the activities performed through the project that will help VET providers in implementing the whole process.

The primary objective of this project is to present to entrepreneurship education VET providers interested in quality issues a range of instruments, methods and tools they can work with to develop by themselves a quality culture within their organisations.
Ultimately the project wants to bring VET providers to reflect on their quality assurance approaches in
comparison to the EQAVET indicative descriptors, and to find out strengths and areas for further development.
The project idea has been raised from the shared experiences of project partners and the analysis of the sector – entrepreneurship education. All the consortium partners share the same background and address entrepreneurship from various perspectives. Some of the partners are more focused in entrepreneurship programmes and activities that develop entrepreneurship soft skills, the others are more focused on entrepreneurship hard skills and consultancy activities. On the other hand in the consortium there are also partners experienced in transparency and quality assurance tools and actions. Europe is also well represented from a geographical point of view: North/Continental Europe with South/East Europe (Portugal, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Greece, Italy and Belgium), thus to bring background and experiences from different perspectives and culture, not only in the field of entrepreneurship.

Project Website

https://in-qual.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 265271,4 Eur

Project Coordinator

INSTITUTO PEDRO NUNES ASSOCIACAO PARA A INOVACAO E DESENVOLVIMENTO EM CIENCIA E TECNOLOGIA & Country: PT

Project Partners

• STICHTING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FRIESLAND
• AINTEK SYMVOULOI EPICHEIRISEON EFARMOGES YPSILIS TECHNOLOGIAS EKPAIDEFSI ANONYMI ETAIREIA
• LIFELONG LEARNING PLATFORM
• Finance & Banking, Associazione per lo Sviluppo Organizzativo e delle Risorse Umane
• CIVIC COMPUTING LIMITED
• EUROCREA MERCHANT SRL