Work Based Learning 2.0 Erasmus Project

Project Title

Work Based Learning 2.0

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

Context/background of the project
The economic crisis that affects all European countries had a strong impact on the already existing “skills gap” in the EU labor market.
The following challenges and related needs are identified:
– ameliorate the cooperation between VET providers and companies to provide a market oriented training offer
– provide VET students with enhanced Work Based Learning methods and tools to prevent demotivation due to the lack of practical application of what they learn in a real business environment
– Apprenticeships lack in effectiveness

Objectives
The project identified the following objectives to be reached in order to answer to the identified needs:
– Improve the cooperation between VET providers and companies and enhance the participation of companies in planning and delivering training so to better match the job market needs
– Motivate VET students at risk of dropping out, by providing them with enhanced Work Based Learning methods
– Improve the internationalization of the VET training offer

Participating organisations
The WBL 2.0 project involved:
– 6 contractual partners including training agencies, companies associations and no profit organisations
– 57 Companies interested in cooperating with the VET sector
– More than 60 trainers and more than 1 200 students
– 45 Associated partners including VET schools, associations, companies, no profit organisations public bodies, school associations, universities and youth organisations

Activities
The project activities were organised as follows:

Activity 1:
Creation of the Intellectual Output contents: Repository of e-learning video lessons and interviews
The project partners produced the Repository of e-learning video lessons and interviews, delivered by company managers and professionals according to a Work based learning approach, to provide VET students that want to become web designers and/or social media managers with an innovative ICT based training offer for better understanding the expectations of the market and of the companies.
The partners contacted companies’ managers and experts to collect Video interviews and Testimonials.
The Video were edited and subtitled and made available on the Project Portal through in-depth description of their contents and didactic potential.

Activity 2
Creation of a Virtual Platform for Internships hosted within a dedicated section on to the WBL 2.0 portal providing accessibility to:
– Profiles of companies interested in host a transnational internship.
– Profiles of students that are interested to carry out their placement at international level
– Monitoring and assessment tools

Activity 3
Creation of Guidelines for the organisation of international internships identifying and mainstreaming innovative successful strategies to ensure that work placements reflect the needs and expectations of the business world and the needs and expectations of the VET students and VET providers.

Activity 4
Organisation of 5 Multiplier events to disseminate the results reached, methodology implemented and output produced in the WBL 2.0 project.

Transversal Activities:
All project partners were involved in the carrying out of the transversal activities related to the effective implementation of the project: Coordination, Reporting, Dissemination, Exploitation and Evaluation.

Results and impact attained
WBL 2.0 impacted on:
– VET TEACHERS providing them with innovative work based learning teaching methods for enriching their classroom lessons with Video based materials facilitating students understanding of what are companies expectations in real life business scenarios and motivate them students to finish their VET training paths
Also WBL 2.0 results implemented effective alternance between training and work through transnational apprenticeships and established fruitful cooperation with companies for organising international and virtual placements

– VET STUDENTS who acquired knowledge, competences and skills in the fields of the latest trends in web designing and implementation and raised their awareness on the importance that companies give in the selection of their human resources.
Students also got in contact with European companies of the sector in order to carry out transnational apprenticeships virtual or in person and also experimenting forms of teleworking

– COMPANIES managers and trainers, by involving them in the creation of the Video collection of training contents. Companies reinforced their participation to the definition of VET training contents addressed to their future workforce, making sure that VET students get trained to be prepared to match their needs of human resources.

Longer-term benefits
The project outputs have all a strong transferability potential and are expected to have long term benefits on the VET sector through a strong cooperation pattern between companies and Vet providers.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 126442 Eur

Project Coordinator

Sistema Practices s.l. & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Confartigianato Imprese Bergamo
• EPIMORFOTIKI KILKIS Single Member llc
• DUNDEE AND ANGUS COLLEGE
• PIXEL – ASSOCIAZIONE CULTURALE
• VsI “eMundus”