Auswahl, Übertragung und Erprobung einer geeigneten Methode zur Feststellung und Anerkennung von non-formalen und informellen Kompetenzen in der beruflichen Bildung von jugendlichen Schaustellern. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Auswahl, Übertragung und Erprobung einer geeigneten Methode zur Feststellung und Anerkennung von non-formalen und informellen Kompetenzen in der beruflichen Bildung von jugendlichen Schaustellern.

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; Recognition (non-formal and informal learning/credits)

Project Summary

The vocational training situation of young showmen is the starting point of the Invet project. Training is difficult for those who are always traveling. That is evident not only in case of young showmen´s school education but also in their vocational training. According to a resolution of the Council of Europe, throughout the EU this training situation is perceived as inadequate. Young people usually see their professional future in the fairground business and their professional training is traditionally based on the principle “learning by doing” in the family business. Their professional skills are not questioned; however, they are not recognized as professional qualifications.

This was the starting point of the project. It was the specific objective of the project to enable young showmen to get their professional skills – acquired outside the formal education system in the family business – identified and recognized. This should have been realized by using the RPL method that is performed in the Netherlands. In Germany there does not exist a tradition of recognizing those informal professional skills. In the Netherlands there is a well-established procedure for the recognition of informally acquired professional skills, the RPL method, although it has not yet applied for the training of young showmen.

During this project 11 partners from the German region of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Dutch region of Gelderland, among them educational authorities, vocational colleges and showmen associations, have developed an adapted “RPL competence assessment process for showmen” based on the Dutch RPL method. This has been successfully tested with young showmen from Germany and the Netherlands. During the trial stage with specific training modules of the German Federal Institute für Berufsbildung BIBB (Federal Institute for Vocational Training and Education) an assessor team, which had been qualified in the Netherland and that is entitled to carry out exams in the initial vocational training in Germany, identified, recorded and assessed the skills of the participants. Then the young showmen got a certificate of experience including information about the identified competencies, which is recognized by all project partners.

Summarizing the pilot activities showed that young showmen have significant informally acquired, professional skills and relevant experience. But often these skills have to be completed and extended in short customized training activities. Based on this experience, during the project period we have offered and implemented such a customized course for electronics technician for building and energy technology. This combination of the RPL method and customized training seems to give the best results in the future. In a manual these and all other experiences and project results have been summarized to make them useable for other projects, regions and target groups.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 132487 Eur

Project Coordinator

Bezirksregierung Arnsberg & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Stichting ROC Nijmegen e.o.