Author/Cbuilder

Aase Højlund Nielsen

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Title

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Cross-border training material

Description

Description

Is it possible to develop training material that make pupils cooperata across international borders, e.g. to jointly solve problems?

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Theme

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• Intercultural learning
• Lifelong learning
• Quality

Target Groups

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• Individuals
• Groups

Type

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• Best practice

Sector

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• Education
• Professional, Scientific and Technical Activities

Educational sector

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• Primary
• General secondary
• Vocational/Technical secondary
• Higher education

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additional info if needed

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Language

Your Project language (ISO 639-2)

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Languages you will look for

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1. LLP project or related resource

Title

Practical Approaches to optimize and implement joint cross-border vocational education and training

Hyperlink

http://www.lawa-quality.eu/

Comments/Description

Joint cross-border vocational education and training (cross-border IVET) entails long-term stays abroad as a part of the apprenticeship. It is important to establish and embed this stay abroad in the structures of vocational systems as an additional qualification. This step will enhance the appeal of vocational trainings in the crafts and skilled trades sector and foster oppportunities for young skilled workers on the labour market. A noticeable professional benefit occurs only after a stay of several months abroad. In an extended period abroad, the apprentices become part of the team and are integrated into daily routines. They learn about different procedural methods and gain important professional competencies.
The growing Europeanization of markets requires a stronger internationalization of vocational education and training. This is the only way of substantially maintaining the economic power of companies and the employability of employees. However, structured assistance for implementation and adequate assessment instruments are not yet available. As a result, young people undertake only short-term stays abroad lasting just a few weeks, internship included. This adds less value to their professional education. There are also not yet adequate European instruments to evaluate the benefits of such measures.
This project seeks to create conditions allowing the easy and successful use of GVA as an obvious qualification in connection with apprenticeship. Structural pre-conditions and operational implementation are taken into account. To optimize structures, the project will clarify general legal and financial conditions while taking into account networking between and qualification of facilitators at home and abroad and the inclusion of multipliers (opinion leaders). Comprehensible assessment measures for competencies gained during a stay abroad will be clarified and developed if necessary. To optimize the operational implementation of cross-border IVET, practical concepts and tools will be developed and tested.
It is also important to ensure a systematic and continuous academic approach during the stay abroad to prevent learning deficits and to diminish apprentices’ fears of receiving lower marks in exams due to their stay abroad. Therefore teaching concepts and contents will be developed using a web-based learning system. Project partners will view themselves as an interface between educational systems and potential users. These partners have experience in the development of qualification concepts and in their general implementation into the educational system. Owing to their practical orientation, they also know about the needs of apprentices and companies and how to implement new qualification offers in actual practice. Some of the project partners are long-standing and reliable partners of HWK Münster who have handled short-term stays abroad for apprentices and who are quite familiar with the challenges faced in mobility actions.
Joint cross-border vocational education and training established and embedded in the structures of educational systems will foster mobility of employees even after apprenticeship. This will facilitate companies’ business activities abroad. The project will lay the groundwork for introducing long-term stays abroad during apprenticeship as a standard part of European educational systems.

2. LLP project or related resource

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Acknowledged additional qualification with collaborative cross border VET – ZQ GVA +

Hyperlink

http://www.grenzenlose-ausbildung-plus.eu

Comments/Description

The rapidly increasing demand for high quality and supported mobility in the field of collaborative cross-border vocational education and training (GVA) in the previous ITP project "GVA / Crafts" shows how urgent SMEs favor the internationalization of education. A purely professional and national oriented vocational training is good. But only internationally trained professionals can follow up the internationalisation of the businesses community. However, it is not enough to offer high-quality mobility of varying duration to students. Necessary is a well-described qualification offer, internationally comparable outcomes with theoretical content and a nationally recognized qualification. On the one hand there is a need for this kind of qualification and the associated skills. On the other hand for aspiring professionals a qualification is only attractive, if it is recognized by regionally anchored organizations, and if it will be evaluated equally abroad (keyword: ECVET and EQF). The important thing is primarily to represent exactly these additional skills.
Next to the "normal" GVA an additional qualification package will be created within this project. Planed is an additional variant of ZQ for international expertise, as an alternative to the "Europe assistant". Relative to the regulated additional qualification "Europe assistant in the crafts" with stays abroad from 3-15 weeks, which has been introduced in North Rhine-Westphalia already, the new and 2nd variant will offer long-term stays abroad of more than 4 months and covers a broader curriculum – working title "ZQ + GVA".
The aim is to develop a mature additional qualification for high-potential graduate students in DE. The formulation of competence based learning outcomes and their description according to ECVET makes ZQ comparable ("transparency / recognition). The adaptation and testing of selected units will be performed in France in the course system of the partners, in the Netherlands in the classes of the ROC and in Norway on modules. The development of a career approach facilitates the classification of ZQ as a career move.
In the second project focus the structures of GVA will be improved and expanded to more practical orientation, as to be able to supply a broad-established offer in future.

3. LLP project or related resource

Title

Border Competences

Hyperlink

http://www.iawm.be/de/projekte/BorderCompetences/BorderCompetences-D.pdf

Comments/Description

The BORDER COMPETENCES project does not focus on the differences
between vocational training systems or diplomas and structures but respects
that training structures differ at national and regional levels. BORDER COMPETENCES
rather centres on the specific challenges learners and teachers face
in border regions that – this is the first insight gained from this project – are
often the same in different countries and regions. The project looked for the
common denominator educational decision-makers, training institutes,
teachers (in particular those teaching foreign languages) and attendees have
to embrace if cross-border learning and teaching are to be successful.
The aim of the BORDER COMPETENCES project is to develop and disseminate
a generic instrument that allows European border regions to develop their
own trans-national strategies for initial and advanced training. Based on
proven competence profiles – in the course of the project, the profile of skills
required from foreign language teachers was developed, put to the test and
validated – training institutes in border regions can systematically prepare
teachers in trans-national regions for their particular European educational
work in terms of contents and methods. This work consists in making sure
that a highly skilled future workforce will have the requisite linguistic, intercultural
and job-relevant competences.
The above-mentioned objectives were fulfilled in the course of the project.
The BORDER COMPETENCES project is based on the Euregio Competence
concept which is geared to the specific requirements of the Maas-Rhine
Euregio and which was evaluated, complemented and reviewed from a
pan-European perspective for the purpose of this project.
Furthermore, it was possible to develop a generic instrument for managing
change processes during the course of the project. Change processes are an
integral part of learning and working in a border region and, based on the
early detection of training needs, they should result in the adaptation of
existing training strategies, competence profiles of teachers and curricula. The
generic instrument that was developed provides the scientific basis to do so.
It was possible to develop, test and validate the “ideal” profile of skills needed
by a foreign language teacher. Based on this profile, the Europeanization of
vocational training can be integrated in initial and advanced teacher training. Thanks to the project partners involved and the high number of good-practice
examples – ranging from the Euregio Competence concept and existing
innovative initial and advanced training schemes for language teachers right
through to international multiple diplomas issued to apprentices – the Maas-
Rhine Euregio serves as a role model to other European border regions (also
referred to as Euregios in this report) in the BORDER COMPETENCES project.
The “Euregio” term encompasses two basic aspects: it does not only describe
a geographic area of neighbouring countries or regions in a cross-border
European space, but also an organizational framework for supranational
cooperation. “Euregio“ also means cross-border cooperation on a voluntary
basis as this form of establishing partnerships between national, regional or
local authorities and institutions does not necessarily imply the creation of
new decision-making structures or government levels.

4. LLP project or related resource

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Solutions

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Internal

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Educational Sector

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Non educational

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Equipment

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Systems for quality monitoring

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