Skills and Talent Erasmus Project

Project Title

Skills and Talent

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Over the last decade, skills competitions in vocational education and training have increased in popularity and visibility. The most well know is the international WorldSkills Competition but also national, regional and local skills competitions have become more common in all European countries, and skills competitions have been a important objective on the EU agenda over the last couple of years.

The benefits for the participating students, colleges and companies in skills competitions seem evident. The individual student will strengthen his/hers professional and personal skills. The colleges may gain prestige, especially if their students win a medal. And the companies will be presented as outstanding training places of high quality. Following this, it has often been argued that skills competitions have a major influence on raising the attractiveness and prestige of VET programmes and thereby more appealing for future students. And it has been emphasized that participation in skills competitions creates new learning materials and methods that can be used in the further training of VET students.

However, we have only little recorded knowledge about the role of skills competitions in improving the attractiveness of VET and the kind of influence skills competitions has on the daily teaching and training at VET colleges. Participating and organising skills competitions are often costly for the involved colleges, companies and organisation in terms of labour and equipment. And the efforts in development and use of pedagogical/didactic tool are often reserved for a small number of students. Therefore, we need to gain more knowledge on how to use skills competitions to improve the reputation of VET in the broader society, and how talents participating in competitions can create an impact on a wider proportion of VET students.

This project “Skills and Talent” will by sharing experiences from partners participating in skills competitions create a handbook of good practice for VET institutions and VET teachers and trainers. The handbook/platform will contain sample material about how to organise skills competitions, preparing students for competition, information materials and exercises for pupils in primary and lower secondary schools, teaching materials for VET students, methods of training of VET teachers and trainers etc.

The partnership consists of four partners. The lead partner EUC Zealand (DK), a major VET college with a wide range of VET programmes, was the organiser of the Danish Skills Championship in 2019 and has worked together with primary and lower secondary schools to increase the attractiveness of VET. Krzyzowa Foundation (PL), a non-profit organisation working with education for society, has extensive know-how and experience in developing new learning methods and digital learning instruments. Kauno (LT), a VET college with a wide range of VET programmes, has participated in many skills competitions which has led to better professional and basis skills among the VET students and teachers whilst offering more advanced learning.

The project will be implemented from autumn 2020 and throughout 2021. The project will be organised with four transnational meetings, one at each partner, and with representatives from all partners in the project. At each meeting the host organisation will present their experiences of participating in skills competitions and how they integrate components from the competitions in daily teaching. They will also present their experiences from presenting VET education at skills competitions in making VET more attractive for future students. The presentation and experiences from each meeting will be discussed in peer-to-peer sessions and best practice examples will be included in the handbook along with the conclusions and recommendations.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 31800 Eur

Project Coordinator

EUC SJÆLLAND & Country: DK

Project Partners

• FUNDACJA KRZYZOWA DLA POROZUMIENIA EUROPEJSKIEGO
• Kauno statybos ir paslaugu mokymo centras