The project 'Promoting Accreditation of Learning' (PAL) is a KA2 for the Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices under the Action of Strategic Partnerships in the Field of Strategic Partnerships of Vocational Education and Training.This 24 month project ran from September 2014 to August 2016.The partners were City of Dublin Education and Training Board, Ireland (CDETB), Kodolanyi Janos Foiskola, Hungary (KJF), Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania (KTU) and Akademia Humanistyczno-Ekonomiczna w Lodzi, Poland (AHE) with Belfast Metropolitan College, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom being the lead partner.Belfast Met & CDETB initiated the project and searched for other European countries which were experiencing similar challenges in the area of PAL in their education systems. Hungary, Poland and Lithuania were identified as the countries that would most benefit in a sharing process with Ireland and Northern Ireland as regards having a mechanism to capture the formal and informal process of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for VET tutors.The profile of the five organisations was an important element in the selection process in the context of securing a mix of core pedagogical elements that could be pulled together to produce the effective mechanisms that are essential for capturing tutors’ formal and informal learning.VET programmes are core elements of the partners included in this project. One of the key objectives of this project was to promote and strengthen peer to peer learning within VET areas. Learning champions exist in most VET organisations; they are those tutors who undertake informal sharing of their resources, expertise and strategies with others and promote the value of learning to others. They act as “pals” to others and as role models/champions for learning but are often unrecognised and their contribution is not captured by Human Resources department for either trainer or trainee. Project Objectives and Main Activities achieved1.Establish how the VET sector currently recognises and accredits tutors’ formal CPD;2.Identify the breadth of informal VET sector professional learning opportunities that are available as cost effective and sustainable mechanisms to support and enhance formal CPD;3.Design an organisational system of recognising, recording and rewarding informal professional learning activities and achievements (CPD credits) aligned to the strategic objectives of an organisation and national priorities;4.Produce a Toolkit of strategies to support the informal sharing of learning from professional experiences;5.Produce a recording tool to monitor, track and verify individual professional learning;6.Recognise role models within organisations as champions of learning/learning professionals through accreditation/certification; and 7.Share the project outcomes with the VET and wider sectors responsible for professional learning.Through this project’s outputs, VET organisations can foster a climate which will enable collaborative informal learning, both planned and incidental, to thrive, be recognised and aligned to their strategic objectives to create a culture of VET learning champions.The target groups are VET tutors, managers, organisations and policy makers. The project aims to support the professionalisation of VET tutors and managers in VET participants in the partner countries in the areas of IT and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). This will be achieved through the development and testing of a toolkit, framework and tracking tool based on research of existing practice to support them to engage in informal learning and allow organisations to capture, assess and accredit informal learning activities aligned to their strategic objectives. They will also have the opportunity to have their informal learning acknowledged through the recognition of learning champions as a sustainable and cost-effective contribution to a VET organisation's management of its CPD programme.Although the project has ended, the website www.palcpd.eu remains live and members of public and other institutions are welcome to access the materials and adapt them to use within their own organisations for the purpose of promoting the sharing of informal learning and recognising those tutors who had contributed to the process.

Technology offers significant opportunities for VET providers but also presents challenges, as by its very nature it changes at a fast pace. In order to maximise the potential technology can have on learning and teaching, the VET workforce must be supported to develop the skills and competences to enhance digital integration into their classroom practices. TELMS project addressed the need for appropriate use of TEL within education provision and the facility to support the staff to embed this in the classroom. Whitin this project a TELMS Programme was developed and delivered to VET teachers from across partner countries. The Programme facilitated partners in establishing an ILT peer mentoring initiatives allowing them to explore how TEL can be embedded across the curriculum using a peer mentoring strategy. It has also promoted professional development of staff in ICT methodologies.The project partnership comprised of H2 Learning from Ireland, an e-learning expert as well as 4 VET organisations: VET College from CDETB in Ireland, South Eastern Regional College, a VET College in the UK; the Solski centre, a VET School in Slovenia; and Malignani, a VET technical institute in Italy. All of the partners had varied experience in digital integration, professional development of staff and mentoring. Only SERC had witnessed the benefits of TEL strategically implemented through a peer mentoring approach and became a natural leader for development of the project Intellectual Outputs. The project was innovative to the partners as it went beyond the mere functionality of the technology and offered deeper pedagogical support and upskilling so that staff could fully realise the instructional potential of the technology to benefit learning and teaching. Within the 2 years of the project duration TELMS has achieved all of the objectives set out in the original project application, namely:1.To develop a Teacher Peer Mentoring Programme in the effective use of ILT & associated learning and teaching strategies, 2.To develop a Teacher Toolkit, 3.To develop TELMS Online Platform, 4.To train 8 mentors at a transnational short-term staff training event in Northern Ireland, 5.To support the 8 mentors to establish & deliver an ILT Pedagogy Mentoring Programme to 16 teachers in the partner institutions, 6.To disseminate project outcomes across EU Member States. The target groups reached within the project were: • VET organisations and providers• VET teachers• VET learners• Policy Makers, Research Bodies and Experts.The project has developed the following Intellectual Outputs::1. Train the Teacher Mentoring Programme - this programme was developed and delivered by SERC during a one week training activity for VET teachers from partner organisations. The programme has built teachers' capacity and ensured that they could mentor their peers in the utilisation of a range of appropriate technologies and associated digital learning strategies.2. TELMS Teacher Toolkit available online through TELMS Online Platform to support the training and provide valuable resources and guidance on implementation of the peer mentoring strategy in the classroom. 3. TELMS Online Platform to facilitate access to innovative training resources for TEL. Participation in the TELMS project gave partners opportunity to upskill their teachers and develop the organisation's capacity by facilitating learning experiences for the staff which ultimately have impacted on the learners; and provided access to new materials to support the teachers' professional development through the implementation of a pedagogy mentoring programme. The project website www.telms.eu contains a wide array of resources and it is expected that the TELMS Online Platform will grow into a permanent and evolving resource that can be used to support the ongoing professional development of VET teachers in digital education and training across Europe.

"There is a growing realisation that digital technology has a role to play within VET programmes and services. Many see such technologies as having the potential to enhance existing learning provision and in enabling new forms of learning, which are captured under the term Technology-enhanced Learning (TEL). However, the use of TEL across European VET providers is patchy and there is a lack of professional practice knowledge in relation to implementing fundamental change in the sector using approaches such as blended-learning.Blend4VET is a TEL project proposal focusing specifically on how blended-learning approaches can expand learning opportunities while also enhancing existing quality of learning programmes. By implementing and trying out different blended learning approaches project partners will learn from this experiment and take on board the key lessons for their organisations.Project objectives:1. Explore and document a process the VET provider should follow when moving an existing accredited programme to a blended model and develop a Toolkit to guide other VET providers in designing and implementing blended-learning approaches.2. Design and implement five blended learning units for different VET con-tent areas as part of existing accredited course for VET learners.3. Explore what implications blended-learning will have the VET institutions, the role of the VET tutor and learners.4. Enhance the professional practice knowledge of VET management, principals and teachers in relation to implementing blended-learning through engaging them in a dialogue and professional development activities.5. Explore how VET providers can work together to develop quality learning resources that can be used across VET programmes.6. Disseminate project outcomes across EU Member States.The project consortium is comprised of 6 organisations from 5 European countries bringing a wide range of technological and pedagogical knowledge and experience. The project partners are 5 VET organisations (Belfast Metropolitan College from Northern Ireland, City of Dublin ETB from Ireland, Koning Willem 1 College from the Netherlands, Tartu Vocational Education Centre from Estonia and Usurbil Vocational School from Basque Country in Spain) along with an e-Learning services and consultancy organisation, H2 learning from Ireland. Furthermore, the project is supported by two Associate Partners - BBC Northern Ireland and SOLAS Further Education and Training Authority in Ireland.The Target group of the project are:• VET Senior management (internal and external stakeholders)• VET Principals• VET Teachers• VET Students• Employers• Private training providers• Awarding Bodies (state and private)This project will select 5 existing face-to-face accredited courses and identify elements that can be piloted in a blended way. The project will carry out an audit of what elements of the courses might work best online and then test this out with 10 teachers, 100 learners, employers and other stakeholders.The focus here is on experiencing how this can be done, by capturing the lessons learnt and in engaging with partner organisations to develop innovative solutions to the challenges encountered. The project will explore the change management process involved in implemented a more harmonised approach across VET institutions that will ultimately increase student retention rates, graduation rates and employment opportunities.The project will develop a number of outcomes:1. “What constitutes good Blended Learning in VET?” Module which will aim to prepare VET teachers from partner organisations to develop and design quality learning content that will be delivered in a blended way.2. Five VET blended learning units – elements of accredited VET programmes which have been redesigned for blended learning and piloted in partner countries3. ""Building Capacity for Blended Learning - Leading Innovation and Change"" Module4. Case studies of blended learning in VET which will capture the process and the implications and the impact this new approach had on partner organisations, teachers, learners and employers.5. Toolkit for Blended Learning in VET which will guide other VET providers in designing and implementing blended-learning approachesThe Toolkit will capture the process a VET provider should follow when moving an existing accredited programme to a blended model, where some elements are offered in a face-to-face setting and others are offered online.The experience from the project will inform the review and/or development of strategic of the VET organisations and will provide valuable knowledge on how to design and implement blended learning programmes within VET organisations. It will inform how VET providers should go about identifying programmes that lend themselves to a blended learning approach and how they can go about designing and implementing such programmes."

The VET mission is to support learners in acquiring knowledge, skills and competences to successfully enter the world of work. Therefore work experience is a fundamental aspect of vocational training across Europe. The Skills 4 Work project aim was to improve work experience pathways for VET students by creating and validating a Work Based Learning implementation model engaging VET organisations and business. The emphasis was on learning from each other’s experience and engaging in a real dialogue with employers by developing the model in close collaboration with local enterprises. Through practical implementation of different work based learning approaches and feedback from enterprises, the project developed hands-on implementation guidelines (model) that will improve significantly the quality of work experience for both the VET students and enterprises in partner countries. The project benefited also VET teachers by creating CPD materials and transnational transfer of good practice through joint peer learning events organised as part of the CPD. Project objectives were:•To learn about existing work experience programmes in partner countries through practical study visits organised for VET teachers as part of the CPD strategy. To foster mutual learning between project partners. •To set up a VET & Employers Working Groups in each partner country to collaborate together on developing and validating WBL implementation guidelines and engaging in a dialogue on meaningful work experience practices. •To develop WBL implementation guidelines (model) for VET.•To develop CPD materials for VET teachers. •To extend employer participation in work-based learning practices across partner countries.•To disseminate project outcomes across EU Member States.The focus of this project was on the practical exercises in Ireland, Slovenia, Germany and the UK that evaluated effectiveness of different WBL models and engaged in collaboration local enterprises. Based on that the following three outcomes were developed aimed at VET providers, teachers and students as well as employers across EU: 1. WBL Implementation Guidelines (Model) for VET2. CPD materials for VET teachers3. VET - Business PartnershipsSkills 4 Work project partners were: H2 Learning from Ireland (project co-ordinator), City of Dublin ETB from Ireland, OSZT IMT from Germany (technical vocational college), CPI from Slovenia, Solski Kranj Centre from Slovenia (vocational college) and SERC from Northern Ireland (Further Education College). A significant outcome from the Skills 4 Work project was that it allowed comparison of partners’ systems with other European countries and sharing of best practice, providing opportunity to explore innovative approaches used elsewhere. For all of the partners the project was complementary to activities already carried out in their organisations, in many aspects the project was innovative. The mixture of partners’ competencies and profile was a significant added value of the project partnership. Working together on this project gave all the partners an insight into how work based learning models operate in each of the countries and how VET teachers are supported to deliver meaningful work experience modules to their students. This project has highlighted the differences that exist between the education and training systems in each of the partner countries. The context and content of work-based learning is different in each country and that was a very interesting element of the project. Each of the partner organisations brought their own perspective to the project and they have used the study visits as a mirror against which to reflect on the current practices in their country. Local context was emerging as a key issue that needs to be taken on board when ‘borrowing’ from another jurisdiction and often it is the discussions that took place around these issues that has led to the deepest learning within the Skills 4 Work project.