Boosting the Soft Skills of Higher Education Students and Graduates Erasmus Project

Project Title

Boosting the Soft Skills of Higher Education Students and Graduates

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 higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Quality and Relevance of Higher Education in Partner Countries; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal)

Project Summary

Context
The fragility of young people in the labor market and the increasing instability of the transition from education are globally recognized by OECD and the International Labour Organization. The mismatch between the skills of young people entering the labor market and the skills sought and valued by employers poses additional challenge to the transition of young people to work and consequent emancipation and independence. Besides the need for matching skills identified by the EC as New Skills for New Jobs initiative, studies such as Bennett (2002) and Ferguson (2010) show the importance of shared understanding about the skills sought by employers, so that educational institutions can adapt their curricula and the young job applicants can prepare themselves in the best way. The McKinsey report “Education to Employment: Getting Europe’s Youth Into Work-The road with many barriers”, 2014 highlights that one of the reasons for the mismatch is the lack of or poor communication between education institutions and employers. Thus emerges a clear need for better dialogue not only between educational institutions and employers, but rather a dialogue involving all stakeholders, from the young people, communities and local authorities to the government.

Project aims
BEGIN is an European social innovation project that aims to develop a comprehensive programme that will boost HE students soft skills and, at the same time, contribute do diminish the gap between skills in demand in the labor market and the skills offered by HE courses, by promoting a programme of career exploration activities and an initiative to engage into systematic and permanent dialogue HE institutions, employers and all relevant stakeholders: HE students, community, local/regional authorities and other organisations across EU.

Target groups
The target groups addressed by the project represent the main labor market actors that can contribute towards reducing unemployment among young graduates:
– HE Students from universities’ faculties/courses with lower levels of employability
– HE Teachers and other academic staff
– HE Stakeholders: companies, social economy organizations, local/regional/national authorities, students’ associations/representatives, previous students from the involved HEIs and EU organizations
Expected outcomes
The project will result in three complementary intellectual outputs
– BEGIN Toolbox for career exploration activities – partner will implement various career exploration activities and document the experience of students, employers and academic staff during the planning, execution and follow-up. The Toolbox will serve as a know-how and inspiration tool to other HEIs, proving guidelines based on real experience of partner universities.
– BEGIN Practical methodology for joint Business-Education Initiatives – a comprehensive tool equipping successful professionals with a step by step mentoring plan and guidelines on how to effectively pass their knowledge to their mentees and develop the skills they would like their future employees to have.
– BEGIN training course for Soft Skills & Personal Development – open e-learning training material that will boost HEI’s staff qualification and thus serve as tool for boosting students’ soft skills, demanded by both contemporary and future labor market. It will aid universities to adopt a proactive approach towards preparation of students by teaching them not only soft skills demanded by the nowadays market, but also by future labor market, such as cognitive load management; virtual collaboration; social intelligence; novel and adaptive thinking; cross-cultural competences, etc.
The three outputs of BEGIN form a comprehensive programme triangle that addresses each of the main labor market stakeholders: HE students, academic staff and employers. Thus an integrated set of knowledge resources and practical tools is formed that contributes to the permanent engagement between the 3 target groups and boosts HE students’ soft skills portfolio, so as to promote better integration of HE graduates in labor market, reduce youth unemployment and shrink the gap between skills offered and skills needed on the present and future labor market.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 260732 Eur

Project Coordinator

V-Systems sp. z o.o. & Country: PL

Project Partners

• ASSOCIACAO INTERCULTURAL AMIGOS DA MOBILIDADE
• Wyzsza Szkola Agrobiznesu w Lomzy
• EUROPEAN CENTER FOR QUALITY OOD
• emcra GmbH
• LUISS LIBERA UNIVERSITA INTERNAZIONALE DEGLI STUDI SOCIALI GUIDO CARLI