Randolph

European Public Employment Services (PES) are key agents in supporting Europe’s strategic goal of high levels of employability during a period of economic turbulence and demographic change. The increased demands on these public services have precipitated a need for transformation and continuous development. For managers and practitioners to perform successfully in their job and to support their own, and their clients’/claimants’, career adaptability and resilience, they each need to acquire a set of new transversal skills and competencies, as well as embed a professional culture of continuous improvement.

The project developed a pan-European Internet Radio platform, incorporating Web 2.0 functionality, linked to innovative community based pedagogies – addressing employability, inclusion and active citizenship in an original and exciting way. The Internet Radio provides an innovative way to engage, retain and develop those who are excluded or at risk of exclusion, and its low-cost, extensibility and sustainability, compared with fm radio for example, is a key dimension in ensuring the success of this project.

Many experienced, knowledgeable and competent adult educators have no formal teaching qualification. If this situation applies to you, then the Toolkit will help you get recognition for what you have learned so far as an adult educator, by universities, colleges and employers. The resources can also be used to help you make plans for your professional development, with a view to achieving excellence in the practice of adult education.

A key output of the first TACCLE project (www.taccle.eu) was a handbook for teachers wanting to introduce e-learning into their practice. There was also a series of training events for teachers based on the handbook. Both the handbook and the courses were rated highly by teachers but feedback from readers and from course participants was that there were still ‘gaps’ that needed to be filled.

The strategic partnership will promote actions, at a national and international scale with the purpose of building contents, digital instruments and analyzing the impact of ICT in a global world. It will pay special attention to learners that have never used the Internet and with disadvantaged backgrounds. It aims to help people facing the process of civilizational change (social, political, economic, and cultural) and, consequently, to shape the needs of future generations.

The objectives of the VOW+IPLM project are to exchange best practice in the validation of informal learning, to develop transferable competence standards to be used when validating individuals against job standards, and to develop an innovative tool "E-evaluation Platform" for the validation of competences acquired at work place and give to each beneficiary the possibility to build an individual further career by lifelong learning.

Be it because they lack the knowledge or because they lack motivation or opportunity, older people are traditionally excluded from Information & Communication Technologies (ICT). So a partnership was created to encourage senior citizens motivation and knowledge about ICT, thus helping to overcome the exclusion of elder people in the field. The project made use of non formal education and innovative methods, to address older people’s learning needs.

Most organisations have little knowledge of their own strengths and abilities to innovate. The project aimed at identifying and making the most of those, while raising awareness about shortages which might be hindering the company’s competitiveness. This was done by means of a diagnosis tool as well as a practice programme created according to the company’s needs, the implementation of which was facilitated by the higher education institutions.

Many disadvantaged young people have acquired competencies that may be relevant for VET through processes of non-formal and informal learning but that cannot be used systematically, because these competences are invisible.

An increasing number of VET teachers/trainers work as developers or project coordinators of transnational project work. They need more competence in the field of international projects planning, implementation and evaluation, but most of all a validation system recognising their competence and experience. A large part of this is acquired through non formal or informal learning. We seek to recognise and accredit this learning by creating an integrated European system.