Towards Senior Workers’ Innovative Training Challenges Erasmus Project

Project Title

Towards Senior Workers’ Innovative Training Challenges

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: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Regional dimension and cooperation

Project Summary

The project “To SWITCH – Towards Senior workers’ Innovative Training Challenges” – gathers a network of eight partners from seven European countries and is intended to create three intellectual outputs (IO) aimed at the innovation and improvement of training processes as well as at the updating of trainers and professionals involved in the training of adult workers, particularly those aged over 50.
Over the last years, professionals involved in adult education have faced the challenge to reconsider their way of working in terms of approaches, methods and tools. Increasingly, they have been requested to introduce learner-centred paradigms in training (to include learners’ background, motivation, expectations, inclinations, critical thinking skills, perspectives). With the profound transformation in pedagogical paradigms, tailor-made approaches have proven to be central to tackle the training of older workers with outdated skills, approaching the end of their career.
Such intense changes are combined with the current demographic emergency. The increasing number of workforces aged over 50, combined with a very low labour substitution rate make it a huge challenge to secure market productivity and competition as well as social cohesion. Even more so, with the negative and unpredictable effects of the COVID-19 emergency. Public policies and businesses struggle to implement programmes to foster inclusion and sustainability within the market and business organizations regardless of the workers’ age. The skills demand by the labour market has been rapidly evolving, thereby dismissing some competencies because outdated, in favour of more modern ones, such as critical and computational thinking and problem solving, all to be applied to high-tech scenarios.
In this framework, the To SWITCH project sets as objective meeting all these challenges by enhancing the role of lifelong learning especially among 50-year olds and over.
To meet this objective, the project will focus on the definition of frameworks of competences, tools and methodologies to the benefit of all professionals addressing the training of older workers. Thanks to a hands-on lab-based approach, professionals from the different countries will share a new theoretical and methodological framework of reference (IO1) based on an updated andragogical model for the training of older workers. They will collaborate on the development, implementation and experimentation of the digital platform (IO2) for the training of trainers and on contents development (methodologies, tools, etc.) and will finally design training guidelines (IO3).
To meet the aforementioned objectives, the project will develop over 5 work phases (WPs). WP1 and WP5 will be cross-sectional phases as they will focus effective project management and dissemination of results respectively. WP2, starting from the analysis of existing scientific literature and best practices, will focus on the definition of a new andragogical paradigm, which, together with the identification of new social, psychological and pedagogical profiles of senior workers professionals, will lead to a theoretical and methodological framework of reference. This work phase will be preparatory for the design of the rest of the innovative outputs. WP3 will be focused on the development of an open source digital platform for the learning and mutual sharing of professionals and institutions dealing with senior workers’ training. This tool will make the most of the collaborative learning holistic approach, which will be useful to adapt the andragogical model to a technological context (theory). The model will influence the digital infrastructure (container), the training resources (content) and the way of using them (method). After an experimentation stage of training courses addressed to trainers/training supervisors/coaches/mentors across all the countries involved in the project, WP4 will focus on designing guidelines (IO) with recommendations and suggestions for all professionals and institutions dealing with the training of adult workers.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 292258 Eur

Project Coordinator

PROVINCIA AUTONOMA DI TRENTO & Country: IT

Project Partners

• SENIORNETT NORGE
• VUC Storstrøm
• ISTITUTO PER LA RICERCA SOCIALE SCARL
• POLE EMPLOI PACA
• UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZA
• AUTORITATEA NATIONALA PENTRU CALIFICARI-ANC
• AONTAS