European Quality Assurance in Transnational VET Mobility through Socially Responsible Behaviour Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Quality Assurance in Transnational VET Mobility through Socially Responsible Behaviour

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Assurance; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

Transnational mobility has over the last decade become a household byword in VET policy discussions not only in EC context, but also at national and regional policy level. Nowadays, being increasingly employed as a pedagogical tool in formal and non-formal contexts, issues of quality in mobility become a pressing concern. Although considered quite important it is very difficult to pin down precisely what good quality in mobility actually means. Here comes the correlation between quality and quantity: the more is known about quality and how to achieve it, the more confident and effective organizations can be in their efforts to reach out and offer mobility experience as a meaningful opportunity for strengthening future employability and personal development.

According to EC Mobility Scoreboard that monitors progress in IVET mobility based on 10 key action areas, the average EU performance for 2016 in terms of ensuring mobility quality is considered unsatisfactory. As regards partners, only Lithuania and Italy performed very good in mobility quality, followed by Germany and UK classified as performing good, and last in the ranking are Bulgaria and Portugal with no data provided.

Given this conceptual problem and relying on EP Resolution of 12 Apr 2016 on Erasmus+ and other tools to foster mobility in VET, STAYMOBIL concept was prompted by the importance of:
+a common European education area grounded in a strong mobility component for developing stronger European identity and enhanced citizenship
+improving VET mobility programmes so as to deliver added value for all participants as regards qualifications, recognition and content
+improving social responsibility (SR) skills as part of mobility learning outcomes.

Thus, STAYMOBIL project sets the overall aim to improve quality assurance in transnational VET mobility through socially responsible behavior of all VET mobility actors, thus promoting and further developing quality in mobility and sustaining learning outcomes.

Specific objectives
~to provide mobility organizers with an innovative framework to assess, monitor and promote QA and sustainability at all stages of VET mobility
~to foster mobility organizers to verify and continuously improve quality of mobility activities through the development of a new to date practical approach for self-audit
~to enhance applicability and facilitate transferability of the project innovative approach through the provision of a set of recommendations, strategies and good implementation practices
~to enable mobility users to assess their SR performance as essential part of learning outcomes, thus increasing broad awareness of good ethical and socially impeccable behaviour during mobility.

Project is aimed primary at:
1.Mobility organisers:
+VET institutions, sending and/ or receiving VET learners and staff
+Intermediary organizations involved in mobility
+Companies providing mobility placements
2.Mobility users
+VET learners (apprentices and VET students)
+VET staff (teachers, trainers, etc.)
3.VET policy makers at national and EU levels.

Within project lifetime 4 IOs will be developed:
1.Reference Framework for Sustainable Transnational VET Mobility setting up a series of quality indicators to assess, monitor and promote QA and sustainability at all mobility stages.
2.Practice Kit aiming to verify, assess and improve the quality of activities provided at all mobility stages based on O1 quality indicators matrix. It will comprise: Guidance Manual for Implementation, Evaluation and Review, Web-based Self-Audit Tool and Progress Portfolio.
3.Recommendations Booklet providing guidelines for applying and facilitating transferability of O1&O2 outside project consortium. It will comprise: Good Practices Dossier; Strategy Cards for Successful Employment of O1&O2 and Tips Packet for Enhancing Transferability.
4.Performance Skillbox serving to raise awareness, evaluate and enhance mobility users’ level of SR before and after mobility as essential part of learning outcomes.

To ensure visibility and encourage wider uptake of project IOs a series of multiplier events will be held:
1.Small-scale conferences in 5 partner countries to popularize the project to relevant stakeholders
2.Open Event in Brussels to gain wider publicity of project results and attract the attention of EU authorities and VET related alliances at EU level
3.Final Conference in UK aiming to spread information to a wider audience about the project results, seeking further exploitation of project IOs and follow-up activities.

STAYMOBIL project will result in raising the issue about common understanding of ‘quality through SR’, provision of high quality mobility and higher level of satisfaction from the experience, thereby sustained learning outcomes and increased number of mobility organizers and users, contributing to European internationalization of VET organizations in Erasmus+ Programme countries and creation of a genuine European labour market.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 292783 Eur

Project Coordinator

EUROPA TRAINING (UK) LTD & Country: UK

Project Partners

• ASSOCIACAO INTERCULTURAL AMIGOS DA MOBILIDADE
• Essenia UETP – University and Enterprise Training Partnership s.r.l.
• EUROPAISCHER VERBAND BERUFLICHER BILDUNGSTRAGER (EVBB)
• VILNIAUS KOLEGIJA
• EUROPEAN CENTER FOR QUALITY OOD