The project focused on VET especially from the point of view of employment opportunities for those with disability or special education needs and the relationship between VET and the labour market. As the title of the project indicates, the aim was to find out the practises and VET schemes in participating countries that are successful in delivering Vocational Education and Training to persons with disabilities and/or special education needs.

The main activity of the project was the analysis of 28 individual study visits. The results of these study visits were examined to find out similarities and differences of the different practises to find out why and how these practises are successful. The best practices were collected into a set of recommendations consisting of four patterns: VET institution management pattern, Vocational Education and Training, Learners, and Labour market. The patterns include the factors and best practises relevant for each of these groups.

A few of these recommendations were highlighted during the presentation of the project as especially important for young learners with disabilities and/or special needs education in VET:

• Learner centered approach when organising VET;
• Enabling flexible education for the learner;
• Ensuring continuing and sufficient training for the teachers;
• Establishing connections between the schools and training centres and the labour market to ensure smooth transition from education to employment to the learner.

This project encourages schools, training centres and employers not to see disabilities, but abilities, and support the young learners with disabilities and/or special needs education during their educational and professional path.

“We all need support in our life, just at different times and for different reasons”

- Rory O’Sullivan, Principal, Killester College of Further Education, Ireland

For more information about the project, visit the website of the project.

Press release: Successful solutions in vocational education and training.

Musa was invited by VSK to speak about the Claim your Voice! Stand up for VET! – campaign, and the work of the VET Working Group. The aim of the presentation was to inspire VSK activists, encourage them to campaign and take a stand for VET in Belgium. The presentation resulted in a lot of discussions, which continued throughout the rest of the GA. The discussions were centred around the Claim your Voice! Stand up for VET! campaign, campaigning for VET in general, as well as the importance of VET. In addition, many practical tips and experiences from  from other countries in Europe, for example Finland, were also illustrated. Hopefully in the nearby future we will see VET campaigns in Belgium.

Two VSK activists took part in the OBESSU YOUVET training for YOUng campaigners in March this year. During the training they drafted an action plan for VSK and Belgium to promote VET and campaign for VET in Belgium. The GA supported the action plan, and now the next step for VSK is to start implementing the plan! The general discussions were interesting and fruitful; a few active students were interested in having a session about campaigning in one of the up-coming events of VSK. The OBESSU VET Working Group will support the implementation of the action plan, and help when needed with organising sessions or workshops on campaigning and VET.

Youth unemployment, high rates of youths Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEETs) and changes in the labour market due to the consequences of the economic and financial crisis, have drawn attention to the role of Vocational Education Training in society, its value and its capacity to channel students from education to work. Whilst the world is changing rapidly, VET in Europe is facing a hard time to find its correct role: in many cases VET is still considered as the second option and not as valid as general secondary education. It is often not seen as a viable option to academic studies, having equal standing. VET students are often socially discriminated, and the huge differences between VET schools and academic secondary schools continue preserving a classist society divided between those who “know”, and those who do practical jobs.

Sadly OBESSU still observes little involvement of school students and their unions in these critical debates. It is  not at all uncommon that debates on how acquiring new skills for the fast changing labour market or developing VET and making it competitive and up-to-date, are held without taking into consideration school students opinions, expectations and demands. Therefore decisions taken, meant to inspire future policies in VET, risk not only to be undemocratic, but also to be addressed in the wrong way, for instance following an interest which shares nothing with the educational purposes of VET.

OBESSU has always been aware of the full capacity of students and their unions in identifying the major areas for improvement in Vocational Education and Training and creating a pragmatic definition of Quality in Education that European Member States should ensure.

YOUVET online training

YOUVET – training for young campaigners, with its four week online training and three day on-site training in Brussels, determined a greater chance for OBESSU and its Member Organisations to give comprehensive answers to pending questions in VET as well as effective solutions to the main problems VET faces in Europe.

Through several months work, the OBESSU Working Group on VET – Daniele Di Mitri (OBESSU Board), Giuseppina Tucci (UdS), Musa Jallow (SAKKI), Ignas Dirma (LMS) and Triin Roos (ESCU) with the support of Tiia Meuronen (OBESSU secretariat) – shaped an online-course: a deep and complete training about VET for more than 15 young activists. The nine different online sessions covered some theoretical aspects of VET, such as Governance of VET, major policies regulating it, main challenges in apprenticeships and participation and involvement of VET students in decision making. In addition, the online training was designed to develop  the personal capacities of the participants which included lobbying, campaigning, fundraising and organising events. The participants interacted online for 30 days between February and March 2013 on the online learning tool Lore.com, and took part in different courses, read papers, had online conversations and commented on each other’s contributions.

YOUVET on-site training in Brussels

On 8^th March, all the results of the online training were collected, as the participants flew to Brussels to start the second part of YOUVET: the on-site training. The aim of this final meeting was to create an Action Plan for each of the Student Organisations taking part in YOUVET, and to adopt the OBESSU campaign “Claim your Voice! Stand up for VET!” at national level during 2013.

The three day training was composed of, first of all, the debriefing of the workshops conducted online to let the participants evaluate the work they did, and discuss together some of the key concepts,  words and definitions. The debriefing part was followed by practical exercises such as the “Scenario games” and the “Action Simulator”, to make the participants to put into practice the knowledge acquired during the online training. The “putting theory into practice” part of the training was fundamental, so as to give the participants the competences to apply what they had learned in their national realities.

The outcomes: Action Plans about VET

The cornerstone of the YOUVET on-site training took place during the second day when the Action Plans were drafted: participants deeply reflected on initiatives, events or actions that their organisation would take in the frame of the OBESSU Claim Your Voice campaign. They considered all the aspects of the future action such as the target group, the smart goals, how to fundraise, media coverage and other practical issues to make the action plan as comprehensive as possible.

The school student unions present in Brussels were SAKKI (Finland), EEO (Denmark), MAKOSZ (Romania), SUSKA (Slovakia), ESCU (Estonia), DOS (Slovenia) and UDS (Italy). They all drafted personalised action plans for their organisations which focused on a number of specific issues of VET such as the lack of free transportation for VET students, the need for investments for school infrastructures and lack of student participation in schools.

The plans drafted are going to be discussed in the following months within the national organisations, in order to make them feasible with the organisations’ overall work-plans, whereas implementation of the action plans will take place by the end of the year 2013. The working group on VET will coordinate the whole process by giving support and guidance to the newly trained VET experts, in order to make these actions reality.

Debates with experts

Besides concluding the online-training and creating Action Plans, the on-site training organised a study visit to the European Parliament, and two political debates with external stakeholders. The first debate was focused on the “Future of VET”: the trajectories and the scenarios VET is walking towards. The discussion was joined by Alison Crabb, the Debuty Head of Unit B2 – Vocational training and adult education of the DG EAC of the European Commission, answering several questions asked by the VET activists present. The second debate was about the recurring topic of VET and employment, apprenticeship and recent measures in that field. This time two young guest speakers took part in the heated debate: James Higgings, responsible of Youth Unemployment from the European Youth Forum and Robert Plummer, social advisor from Business Europe.

After YOUVET

The YOUVET training was the beginning for the work done at the national level for improving VET in Europe. The training is over, but the participants are now in their home countries with the action plans they did during the training. The next step is to implement these action plans at the national level through different actions, campaigns and policy work during 2013. These actions will tackle the problems and issues of the different VET systems across Europe and together improve the European perspective towards Vocational Education and Training. Claim your Voice! Stand up for VET!

Written by Daniele Di Mitri

YOUVET was a novel training for OBESSU as it started with four weeks of the very first OBESSU online training. The online training was divided into three main themes: VET at the European level, VET at the national level and campaigning. The 9 different sessions were focused on topics such as European VET policies, participation, funding & fundraising and the relationship between VET and the labour market.

After the online training the participants flew to Brussels, Belgium, for the YOUVET on-site training. During three days in Brussels, the participants continued the discussions started online, met stakeholders and policy-makers and made action plans for their national campaigns on VET. Later this year these plans will be transformed to concrete actions all around Europe!

Click here to have a look at some pictures!

“Under the Youth Guarantee Member States should put in place measures to ensure that young people up to age 25 receive a good quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of leaving school or becoming unemployed.” – European Commission

The Youth Guarantee has already been implemented in some European countries, such as Finland and Austria, where it has proved to be worth the investment. The Youth Guarantee Recommendation is introducing clear benchmarks for the Member States and precise guidelines for establishing the national Youth Guarantee schemes. The Recommendation also calls for: strong partnerships with all stakeholders; ensuring early intervention and action to avoid young people becoming or remaining NEETs (not in employment, education or training); taking supportive measures that will enable labour market integration; making full use of EU funding to that end; assessing and continuously improving the Youth Guarantee; and implementing the scheme rapidly.

“Attention has clearly focused on helping young people remain in, and return to, education and training through work-based learning routes. Building on their joint work in the last decade, countries have advanced in setting up qualifications frameworks and devising approaches to assure quality in VET, but much work is still in the planning stage.” -CEDEFOP

The past two years have been economically difficult years in Europe, and Vocational Education and Training is at the core of Europe’s response to the economic crisis. Dealing with the economic crisis and the long-term challenges that Europe faces, requires investment in skills: VET is an important part of that investment. In Europe, about half of all jobs require a medium level qualification, primarily acquired through VET.  The importance of investing in skills and VET is also seen at the national level as countries have put more labour market relevant (vocational) education at the centre of strategies for long-term economic success and competitiveness.

Countries have worked towards improving the attractiveness of VET, for example through different activities to familiarise young people with the VET system. However raising attractiveness is more than promoting VET to young people: attractive education also needs to be quality education. Different European initiatives and projects such as EQAVET (European Quality Assurance in VET) have advocated quality at European level, and the majority of the countries have devised a national quality assurance approach and progressing towards a national quality assurance framework for VET providers, an objective for 2015 set out in the Bruges Communiqué.

“Attractive, open, modern and inclusive vocational education and training (VET) is a pillar of knowledge economies.”  - CEDEFOP

YOUVET – YOUng campaigners for VET is a training course that will provide the participants with campaigning tools and ideas as well as with knowledge about the European dimension of youth and Vocational Education and Training (VET) policies. The training consists of two parts: a four week online training and three days of on-site training.

The online training will start on 11th February 2013.
The on-site training will take place in Brussels, Belgium from the 8th (arrival) to the 12th (departure) March 2013.

Read the extended call for participants here.

The deadline for applications is 21st January 2013 (midnight CET).

To apply, fill in the Online Application Form.

For questions about the training or registration, please contact tiia(a)obessu.org

YOUvet – YOUng campaigners for VET is a training course that will provide the participants with campaigning tools and ideas as well as with knowledge about the European dimension of youth and Vocational Education and Training (VET) policies. The training consists of two parts: a four week online training and three days of on-site training.

The online training will start on 11th February 2013.
The on-site training will take place in Brussels, Belgium from the 8th (arrival) to the 12th (departure) March 2013.

Read the call for participants here.

The deadline for applications is 14th January 2013 (midnight CET).

To apply, fill in the Online Application Form.

For two days Working Group members Triin (Estonia), Ignas (Lithuania) and Giuseppina (Italy), together with OBESSU’s Board member Daniele, dived into the world of online training, different aspects of Vocational Education and Training and campaigning when planning the agenda and content for YOUvet – training for YOUng campaigners for VET, and shaping the Claim your Voice! Stand up for VET! –campaign for 2013.

YOUvet – YOUvet – training for YOUng campaigners for VET is an OBESSU training to be held during February and March 2013. This training will also be the first online training of OBESSU, as most of the training will take place online before the conclusion in Brussels. During the online training the participants from all around the Europe will gain knowledge about European VET policies and campaigning, share their knowledge and experiences about VET at the national level and work on a national action plans for VET campaigns.

The second year of Claim your Voice! Stand up for VET! –campaign will kick off in a few weeks and the second day of the Working Group meeting was dedicated to shaping the campaign calendar for the next year. Stay tuned to learn more about what is going to happen!