Best Practice 8

A main problem identified in several EU countries is the fact that employment market is not easily accessible to everybody. Some of the disadvantaged groups to whom the employment market is not accessible are early school leavers, low skilled persons, ethnic minorities, women and others. Due to the above, several other problems occur such as social exclusion and poverty. The main aim of this project was to develop skills and competences in order to ease the access of the disadvantaged groups to the labor market. 

EQLEARN is based on one of the deliverables of the project Channels of Access (COA) namely: Curriculum that will assist unemployed women to enter the labour market. The main objective of the COA project was to ease the access of unactive/unemployed women in the employment market. 100 unemployed women were selected and were trained. Based on the occupation they were interested to get employed in different training paths were developed. These training paths were developed after research on the competences needed for the specific occupation. Some of these women were then employed. Their entrance to the employment market was evaluated both by the women themselves as well as the companies. The research actually proved that the training needed was within the European Reference Framework developing 3 out of the eight competences namely:

1. Social and Civic competences (the module named Effective Communication Techniques

2. Communication in foreign languages (English Language was used as the pilot language)

3. Digital competence

EQLEARN project aimed to develop a total solution for the development of competences of disadvantaged groups so that they can integrate into the society and the labour market. The project has further developed the curriculum developed by the EQUAL project so that it covers the whole European Reference Framework. More specifically the following competences have been developed additionally to the existing ones:

1)      Communication in the mother tongue

2)      Mathematical competence and basic competences in the science and technology

3)       Learning to learn

4)       Sense of initiative an d enterpreneuship

5)      Cultural awareness and expression

There is big variety of methodological tools and the lessons cover to a significant depth the development of the respective competences. All materials have been uploaded on an elearning platform.

Moreover, the product was thoroughly tested and adopted both after the pilot in the classroom as well as after the pilot testing of the platform

The main innovation of the project was the fact that an easily accessible solution for the development of key competences was developed. The solution is holistic as it covers all key competences and it is easily accessible through the internet (still at no cost).

The project has developed the training curricula and materials for the 8 ERF competencies as well as 82 methodological tools. Three Vet providers in the consortium are still using the training materials. Moreover, the trainer’s guide with the 82 methodological tools has been disseminated to trainers and the feedback received was very positive. The platform is still alive and the consortium often receives requests for usernames and passwords

It should also be noted that the main product of EQLEARN, the e-learning platform has an impact on the VET system since it offers a new way of learning, that is not so common in Cyprus, Greece or Slovakia especially for competences as those of ERF.