Improving employability in the digital sector by strengthening transversal skills of young people searching socio-professional integration. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Improving employability in the digital sector by strengthening transversal skills of young people searching socio-professional integration.

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: Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal); Regional dimension and cooperation; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

In 2015, more than 17 million young people in the EU were without a vocational qualification, unemployed or not in education or training. In 2018, 16.5% of young people in Europe were seeking socio-professional integration, compared to 14.2% in 2016 (OECD). The problem of inactive young people is a permanent challenge for Europe.
Despite a high rate of inactive young people, some professional sectors are struggling to recruit (80% in some sectors), including in attractive professions such as those in the digital sector. Everywhere, the digital revolution is underway. In each territory, the establishment of the digital sector is encouraged.
However, the training offer exists. It is even plentiful. But employers are not only looking for technical skills and recruitment is held back by a lack of professionalism.
The talents sought today correspond to the following profile:
O A base of “business skills” that underpins technical expertise
O Cross-cutting skills, particularly in terms of interpersonal skills
O A set of professional qualities that determine the ability to demonstrate autonomy, initiative and responsibility in the conduct of activities and the management of interfaces.
These cross-cutting skills and professional qualities are all the more important as companies are engaged in almost permanent processes of change. The ability to adapt, learn and evolve is therefore essential in the search for new talent.
With this in mind, six organisations from five different countries, two territorial training organisations, IFAPME (Liège, Belgium) and Formation et Métier (Marseille, France), a regional association for sustainable employment (Lisbon, Portugal), the WHKT Regional Chamber of Crafts and Trades (Dusseldörf, Germany), the University of Galati, UGAL, Department of Computer Science (Galati, Romania), and the World Committee for Lifelong Learning (Paris, France), all working in the same field, that of socio-professional integration, have chosen to combine their expertise and pool their skills to serve young people aged 16 to 29, who are not in school, are not qualified and are not in employment, to enable them to gain access to these key skills, which are transversal and personal skills, to facilitate their access to employment in the digital professions and thus contribute to their social and professional inclusion
The DIGITER project is divided into 4 phases from September 2017 to December 2020.
SKILLS MAPPING (O1) – Project leader: WHKT (Germany) – Sept 2017 to Apr 2018
Identification of the territorial partners to be mobilised and conduct of a survey to better define the cross-disciplinary skills expected by digital employers, on profiles at the sub-baccalaureate level.
REFERENTIAL OF TRANSVERSAL SKILLS (O2) – Sponsor: Formation et Métier (France) – May 2018 to Sept 2020
15 skills divided into 3 categories (digital, entrepreneurial, generic) with 4 acquisition levels covering all the needs of companies. Reference system tested twice, impacting 362 people, including 230 NEETs.
EVALUATION AND MODELING DEVICE FOR ACCOMPANYING AND TRAINING NEET YOUNG PEOPLE ON THE ACQUISITION OF THESE TRANSVERSE SKILLS (O3) – Lead partner: UGAL (Romania) – Sept 2018 to Oct 2020
ELABORATION OF A TRANSNATIONAL REFERENTIAL FOR A TERRITORY LABELLED AS A LEARNING TERRITORY (O4) – Lead partner: CMA (Paris) – June 2020 to Dec 2020
There is a before and after to Digiter. Regardless of the organisation and format of the experiment, the training modules proposed have had a positive effect on the development of learners’ cross-disciplinary skills.
Impacts observed on :
O ORGANISATIONS: consolidation and diversification of their partnership relations. Today, identified as a resource centre by other training organisations, they are regularly called upon for their expertise on this subject.
The LEARNERS: better understanding of their needs, awareness of the absolute necessity to work on cross-cutting skills at the same time as technical skills, since this dual acquisition will determine their eventual recruitment.
TRAINERS: better understanding of the expectations of the business world, development of their own transversal skills (creativity, adaptability, etc.) and their own networks and, finally, reflection on the plurality of their function (facilitator, coordinator, coach, trainer, etc.)
The TERRITORY: reinforcement of the relevance of the training offer with regard to the expectations of local companies and, in fact, reinforcement of the professionalism of young people who learn and are assessed in real work situations, on concrete cases and no longer in an “ideal” examination situation.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 391465,92 Eur

Project Coordinator

Formation et Métier & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Associação Portuguesa de Emprego Apoiado
• WESTDEUTSCHER HANDWERKSKAMMERTAG
• UNIVERSITATEA DUNAREA DE JOS DIN GALATI
• CENTRE IFAPME LIEGE HUY VERVIERS ASBL
• Comité mondial pour les apprentissages tout au long de la vie