What really matters Erasmus Project

Project Title

What really matters

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 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

“What Really Matters” 2014-1-RO01-KA202-002863 project has address core issues related with the ability and motivation of University graduates to gain employment by finding a job in the area of their specialization.
The objectives of the project during its two years of implementation were to: 1. Develop new innovative approaches to increase the quality and the relevance of the educational offer to graduates as well as to youth workers: OER, Handbook, online training course, Career Days and International conference; 2. Provide personalized support, collaborative learning, critical thinking, open educational resources, virtual mobility and other innovative learning methods to graduates and youth workers: OER, online training course; 3. Stimulate employability: 6 Career Days type events; 4. Increase employability through active career counseling and support services: 6 Career Days type events; 5. Promote a culture of inter sectorial and international collaboration: OER and International Conference.
The project was promoted by 7 Strategic Partners from Romania, Cyprus, Hungary and Turkey and focused on the needs of the unemployed youth in the countries of the participating organizations aiming to improve the quality and accessibility of educational and training provisions through the use of ICT as well as to provide new skills for gaining long term employment and for entrepreneurship. “What Really Matters” also addressed the needs of youth workers (training and career counselors) by providing instruments to facilitate the delivery and accessibility of qualitative services through the development of relevant and innovative content: online training courses and OER. The development of relevant and innovative e-learning content of the 6 online training courses (270 participants) as well as ICT helped meet the needs of the target groups and facilitated the delivery of qualitative guidance and training provisions.
The study on young unemployment (Research O2): the main objective of this study is to reflect the reality of youth vocational counseling needs. These conclusions represent the starting point in elaborating project’s Handbook on Vocational Counselling dedicated to youth workers, career counselors, trainers and educators. The aim of this questionnaire is to point out young people’s identification of vocational counseling needs, unemployment statistics, relevant competencies on the labor market, and current knowledge on active national policies in offering employment opportunities for young people. A total of 432 youth have voluntarily responded to our online questionnaire in four languages, available for freely dissemination on project’s webpage http://wrmcloud.eu/forms/. These results prove that youth is keen to knowledge and information about labor market that encourages their lucrative initiatives, thus there is an urgent need for developing a virtual community that gathers and freely disseminates such information about internships, apprenticeship and traineeship programs in companies at local, regional and European level.
Handbook on Vocational Counselling consists of 6 Chapters: Self-assessment, Opportunities awareness, Taking decisions, Transition planning, Career Management and Entrepreneurship. It is structured in 244 pages, written in English. All Partners except X-House were involved in the activity of designing the structure and elaborating resource materials for a period of 7 months. The Handbook was edited under Eikon Publishing House in December 2015, and printed and multiplied in 30 exemplars. Each Country has received 10 exemplars, which will consist own vocational counselling Methodology.
OER on Vocational counselling www.wrmcloud.eu: Projects’ OER (open education resources) represents a website that long term and freely disseminates all Intellectual Outputs of the project O2 and O4, as well as Monthly Newsletters/News, educational resources for youth workers, vocational counsellors and trainers and employment resources for young people, by the end of the project. During Sept 2014 and Oct 2015, the OER was designed by X-HO. Currently the OER – O3 is active and freely disseminates milestones activities and main conclusions of the project’s IO in order to freely disseminate best practices in the field of vocational education as seen by our strategic partnership.
All our Intellectual outputs have empowered us to successfully organize 6 Career Days, summing 180 beneficiary young graduates and last yeas University students. The objective of this event was to disseminate project’s intellectual outputs and to implement the methodology developed under this project.
In the end of our project we have organized an International Conference on Vocational Counseling in Arad 22-24 June 2016, which has gathered 100 national and 10 international specialists in the field of career counseling and youth work. By creating this opportunity we had received positive feedback on our entire intellectual outputs.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 166841 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fundatia Dezvoltarea Popoarelor Filiala Arad & Country: RO

Project Partners

• SZENT ISTVAN UNIVERSITY
• BTM Resources
• AXIS Regional Academy Ltd
• UNIVERSITATEA AUREL VLAICU DIN ARAD
• S.C. X-HOUSE S.R.L.
• HACETTEPE UNIVERSITESI