VET IN 3D: Social Inclusion, Entrepreneurship and Technology Enabled Learning

Preparation of highly skilled, motivated and digitally competent teachers continues to be one of the main priorities in Europe. According to several EU issued documents such as Riga conclusions (2015) and the recent opinion of Advisory Committee on Vocational Training (2018) VET teachers need to be supported through more flexible, digital and innovative teaching methods. The teaching technologies are changing too fast and in order to be updated and find more training opportunities the exchange of good practices on European level can facilitate the development and application of innovations. Identified by partners' lack of organised “transnational conferences” is an obstacle towards study of other contexts and improvement of competences.The focus of the project will be to exchange practices on three dimensions of VET considered as primary drivers of excellence: entrepreneurship education; social inclusion; technology enabled learning (tel). Given the context presented above, the general objective of the project is to innovate VET provision in Europe through an intense capacity building action addressed to VET teachers. The specific objectives are: to create more opportunities for VET organisations to exchange practices and discuss about innovation on a regular basis; to improve the competences of the VET staff on innovative teaching methodologies and raise awareness on the three dimensions of VET excellence.The target groups of the project will be: VET teachers, headmasters, staff with administrative functions and mobility experts. Stakeholders involved in the valorisation process will be: public authorities dealing with education, business actors, universities, EU institutions (including national agencies) etc. Each of target group will be involved in 2 interconnected levels of participation: direct involvement (for example direct participation in transnational meetings, training events, transferring of the practice in their countries etc.) or indirect involvement, meaning those who will be reached by dissemination activities (presentation, newsletters, social medias etc.) The project activities will include transnational meetings, which will be organised approximately every six months, while management processes will be ensured through online meetings once per month. Three joint staff training events will be used to develop and test a model of a transnational conference open to VET practitioners from all European countries aimed at exchanging practices and fostering the discussion about innovation in VET. The partners will also produce a collection of practices on the three dimension of excellence in VET presented above which will be put at disposal of European VET schools, as well as an analysis of the trends of most successful practices.The expected results are the following: identifying, testing and mainstreaming of a template of transnational conference where VET schools around Europe can meet to exchange practices and work on innovation in VET every year; improving competences in VET practitioners on different topics such as entrepreneurship education, social inclusion and technology enables learning. Finally, new follow-up initiatives are expected to start off as a result of the exchange.