Transferability of Skills, Competition and Assessment Standards for better recognition of skills within EU Erasmus Project

Project Title

Transferability of Skills, Competition and Assessment Standards for better recognition of skills within EU

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 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Recognition, transparency, certification; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The TOSCA project was based on cooperation between three European countries – Latvia, Estonia and the Netherlands – in organizing the content of vocational education, qualification standards and skills competitions in order to promote the comparability of nationally recognized professional qualifications and ensure their transferability, strengthen the link between the education sector and the labor market, support the development of vocational skills and vocational education and training, as well as to improve the organizational quality of skills competitions at local, national and international levels.

One of the main objectives of the Project was to promote stronger coherence between designated EU countries, national skills transparency, and recognition tools, to ensure that skills and qualifications can easily be recognized nationally and across borders.The project aimed to support skills and VET developments in the three project countries, make the cooperation more efficient for the development of test models to be used in local, regional and national skills competitions.Development of online database for approved and mutually evaluated test models was another goal.

Four organizations from three EU member countries participated in the project:
National Centre for Education (Latvia) is a public administration institution subordinated to the Ministry of Education and Science.It organises the development of occupational skills standards; provides organisational and methodological support for the development of the national skills and qualification standards; methodological support to VET schools to develop VET programmes, etc.
Foundation Skills Netherlands (Netherlands) – main targets are the promotion of Skills and craftsmanship and the related vocational education.
Foundation Innove (Estonia) has the leading role in content development of VET in Estonia and also organizes skills competitions in Estonia and prepares youth for the international skills competitions.
European Skills Promotion Organisation, WorldSkills Europe (Netherlands) raises awareness of the importance of professional excellence and high quality vocational education and training for Europe by orchestrating the biennial EuroSkills competition for youth around Europe.

Four occupational groups were identified as mutual interest (leading countries in the brackets):
1.Fashion Technology (LV)
2.Wood working (NL)
3.Catering and Restaurant Services (EE)
4.Web page and graphic design (EE)

Three main activities and several dissemination events were carried out:
1.Development of methods for comparison and analyses of occupational standards and development of standardized descriptions of selected skills.
2.Standardized test models and assessment toolkits including a description of the relevant skill technical outline, infrastructure list, test project, assessment criteria, recommendations for teachers and potential contests etc.
3.Database (https://idt.skillscompetitions.eu/auth/login) to store, systematize and provide access to the developed documentation, available to all partner countries and a demo version of the database available to anyone interested.
Dissemination activities and seminars.Major information on project members’ websites, meetings with VET teachers, presentation at WSE meetings, as well as China International Skills Competition. At the end of the project, an international project outcome dissemination conference was organized.

Within the first activity of the project (Standardized descriptions of selected skills), eight standardized occupational descriptions of selected skills were developed. Each description includes both a description of the occupation’s job responsibilities and information about what the individual needs to know, understand and be able to fulfil.

Within the second activity (Standardized test models and assessment toolkits) test models were developed.The test model includes standardized terms of reference for the competition and documents such as standardized occupations/employment descriptions, descriptions of infrastructure, and inventories of materials, tools and equipment necessary etc. as well as the evaluation system (assessment toolkits).
The third activity included the development of the database and input of the elaborated materials.

The online database, methodology and tools can be used in vocational education institutions to organize the teaching and learning process, also to evaluate the acquired knowledge and skills, to prepare contestants for skills competitions, to organize teachers/trainers competence upgrade activities in any country.The developed documentation in the long run can be used to organize skill competitions at different levels in any country of interest.This could save time and resources to develop documentation for professional competitions, further promoting the creation of a unified understanding, recognition and transferability in VET at transnational level.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 445702,02 Eur

Project Coordinator

VALSTS IZGLITIBAS SATURA CENTRS & Country: LV

Project Partners

• SIHTASUTUS INNOVE
• stichting Skills Netherlands
• European Skills Promotion Organisation (WorldSkills Europe)