CE-E VET Circular economy and entrepreneurship to boost VET students’ employability and resilience

<< Background >>CE-E VET strategic partnership offered a new ways for VET schools and VET providers to boost VET students’ key competences using sustainable entrepreneurship and circular economy as activators of employability skills and ability to adapt to the ever changing labour market conditions. The actual competitive and un predictable job market requires young people to be qualified, but also able to adapt to contemporary and future societal problems. Our project proposed a programme that addresses the personal development of VET students, focusing especially on building their motivation for participating in society and contributing to the labour market, increase their confidence as employees, entrepreneurs or citizens, while enhancing employability skills using entrepreneurship as an activator for interest and ICT based strategies to get in touch with educators and society The project responded to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development on “Promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all” and is directly linked education.The partners, organizations and companies, other institutions, teachers, students can move towards an ecological,sustainable economy, ethical business.<< Objectives >> The aims of the project were:*create a clear, comprehensive skills framework blending transversal, entrepreneurial and green skills needed by the current labor market, needed by VET EDUCATORS to boost their students' preparation;*designed and tested a professional development program VET EDUCATORS to upgrade their preparation on their foster ability to support VET students developing selected competencies;*created the CE-E VET library composed by micro lessons, and ready to use materials VET educators can use to foster employability skills in VET students.By pursuing these objectives, the following was achieved:1.Improving and updating students' skills adapted to the current labor market;2. Constant updating of teachers' skills to support students for work and life;3.Development of entrepreneurial skills of students for the labor market;4.The development of teachers' teaching skills according to the current context.<< Implementation >>The first 5 months in the project were dedicated to study and analyse the EU level skills and competence framework, implement the new framework and get it assessed by local key stakeholders, as SMEs, entrepreneurs and chamber of commerce, but also other trainers, experts in sustainability and green skills development and teaching. The central part of the project followed to produce the main results in the project, needed to support VET teachers in updating their competences, to students to gain news skills and to SMEs to be more involved in the improvement process of the VET systems. These results were: Curriculum, Educators' Manual and Virtual Library.After the realization of the intellectual results in which all the partners participated, the piloting was carried out with the students, the teachers from the partner organizations, then from other organizations with the aim of correcting and improving the materials created. Through the Multiplicative Events, other entities were made aware of the creation of these products that can be easily used by other organizations interested in entrepreneurship, circular economy, resilience, ecology. The feedback was very good, these activities caused interest for many economic and educational factors, responsible for the environment<< Results >>The 3 main outputs in the project were(R1) CE-E VET SKILL FRAMEWORK presenting in a clear way, skills needed in the actual labour market, encompassing entrepreneurial skills, transversal sustainability skills, such as those skills needed by GREEN SMEs or in general by climate change resilient society that each citizen should be aware of and possess to be true agent of sustainable change(R2) VET TEACHERS’ HANDBOOK The manual offered the possibility to consolidate and enhance practitioners knowledge on the key elements in the project, and offer a solid upskilling possibility in relation with the project’s topics. The manual also illustrated the 3 ways the library can be used. Such as (1) a student studying completely by him/herself, (2) a teacher introduces the main concepts, then students study by themselves and (3) real blended learning approach, encompassing both individual learning and class-based activities. This approach was essential to meet the micro-lessons approach adopted by the project – not to mention favoured by digital natives more used to fast approach to things. (R3) CE-E VET MULTILINGUAL LIBRARY offering ready-to-use resources (micro-lessons, games, reading materials, exercises…) teachers can associate to any class or lesson on key concepts encompassing sustainability, entrepreneurial skills, responsibility. All resources are available in open access.