"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 aim of the Live Skills project was to tackle skills gaps in the Creative and Cultural Sector (CCS) and more specifically in the Audio Visual (AV) and Live Performance (LP) sectors and offer new innovative training to upskill students and cultural professionals in the areas of digital and new technologies, arts management and cultural entrepreneurship, responding to current market needs and modernising VET systems in the UK, Greece, Romania and Bulgaria. The Live Skills Alliance was composed of a consortium of nine partners across 4 countries - including expert VET providers in the sector, associations of both employers and cultural professionals, a national accreditation and certification body, a cultural organisation and two European wide associated partners. Live Skills project has designed and delivered three comprehensive and innovative vocational education and training programmes for students and professionals in the Audio Visual and Live Performance sectors, after a thorough research which included desk research, surveys, personal interviews and focus groups, as well as evidence-based process and qualitative findings which identified current trends and skills needs in those sectors in the countries in focus. These results fed into the design of the three new training programmes/curricula, which were then tested through a two-stage pilot of courses and seminars following a blended learning methodology and culminated with a number of short work placements in cultural institutions and creative businesses. More than 655 learners have taken part in the training in the four countries and approximately 100 of them have been offered short work placements in about 25 cultural organisations in Bulgaria, Greece and the UK. The curricula have been made available for free use under creative commons licence on the project’s website that will remain operational for two more years in order to reach and impact a maximum number of stakeholders and learners, alongside with all other resources produced at various stages of the project addressed to students, cultural professionals, teachers, VET providers, employers in the sector as well as education authorities and policy makers. These 200+ free resources altogether, make a significant and holistic contribution to modernising VET education in Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and the UK and boosting the cultural sector’s capacity to grow and respond to current and future market needs.The project also disseminated its outputs through the organisation of information days, participation in events organised by other stakeholders, a final international conference turned into a webinar during the COVID19 confinement, and the organisation of sustainability taster and demonstration workshops and policy symposia during the last phases of the project’s implementation, engaging other VET providers, education authorities and stakeholders at large. More than 5000 people in the EU accessed information and materials via the project’s events, website and social media pages. A robust Quality Assurance mechanism has accompanied the project throughout, and a Quality Assurance report was one of the project’s deliverables. In addition, an Evaluation and Quality Assurance Panel was formed, which had regular meetings, offering reviews and recommendations for every deliverable of the project, ensuring that the three curricula were of high quality and aligned with ECVET and EQAVET and that accreditation and transferability could be pursued further following the official closure of the project. Long-term procedures for Quality Assurance and accreditation of the curricula were among the outputs and will potentially support recognition and accreditation processes beyond the lifespan of the project. Finally, an Evaluation Report was produced by an external independent Evaluator which has followed the project throughout, and which reports very positive assessment of the project’s achievements and its quality.

In recent years, EU policies have given greater attention to ICT skills, and in particular to the employment of ICT specialists. The recently updated Digital Single Market strategy emphasises the need for policies designed to boost stability in European labour markets and improve the EU’s competitive position. Monitoring the employment of ICT specialists has therefore become increasingly important. This applies not only to students with ICT background, but also others coming from Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) such as psychology, communication, business and fine arts or languages backgrounds that can find solutions to problems facing humanity, whether these can be solved by technology or not. The final aim is to upskill creative thinkers to lead digital strategies of the companies. These strategies will be implemented by ICT experts who will be able to develop tools and solutions using Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence or Blockchain. The IoToAI project will also promote complementary skills such as: Quality, risk and safety; Management, leadership and entrepreneurial; Communication; Innovation; Emotional intelligence and the ability to consider ethical implications. This is in alignment with the report of the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) “Skills for Smart Industrial Specialisation and Digital Transformation” and with the European Vision for high-tech T-shaped skills for 2030.IoToAI project has the following specific objectives:•Analyse national VET curricula related to ICT to see how they can be updated with digital skills that are in demand (especially those related with AI, IoT, Cloud and blockchain) , by different business sectors •Analyse SSH higher education curricula that could be empowered by the knowledge of non high technical skills in AI and big data analysis.•Upskill non-technical highly qualified workers to deliver digital strategies in businesses related to their background•Upskill technical workers (especially in the field of VET) to undertake digital strategies in a broad range of business. •Provide the VET teachers with the right tools to identify the pedagogical model for the teacher trainingIoToAI comprises of 5 partners from 3 different countries (UK, Italy and Spain). The consortium is led by the biggest VET college in Northern Ireland (Belfast Metropolitan College), one higher education technical institution (UPCT), one VET provider of digital strategies for company leaders (IONOLOGY), one VET institution that focuses on delivering training related to ICT (SKILLSDIVERS) and one NGO (CEIPES) specializing in improving methodologies and technologies in the field of education, developing innovative strategies and participatory tools in the work with youth and adult. In order to achieve our objectives, three intellectual outputs will be developed: - A skills needs report to be delivered to VET authorities in order to show training gaps in ICT and SSH degrees in relation to digitization in businesses. - An academic curriculum will be designed and developed. It will include topics such as Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, Blockchain, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence at technical and business levels. - A Toolkit for teachers will also be developed for Blended Learning in VET and will incorporate IoToAI topics.To enhance the impact of the project, 4 dissemination events (three local and one international) will be organized to reach more than 180 stakeholders, including VET teachers, researchers and education authorities. With these results, we aim to develop a specific and innovative training for modernizing workers' and students' profiles. The industry will be also benefit if technicians have the opportunity to apply the knowledge acquired in the training course within their factories or sectors, as they could be working within the ICT departments that are in charge. At the same time, young employees with a completely different professional background but with high IT affinity will be attracted to be part of the relevant department. This project will contribute to a higher quality of education and training offering by developing different training paths for VET students and attracting HE graduates to an innovative VET.As a medium/long term strategy, the digital transformation cannot be ignored as it is essential to improve the competitiveness of the EU industry. In order to do so, there is utmost need to update the skills of European workers and provide recommendations at training level.

"“Dual ECOsystems – EU Alliances for ICT” project is promoted by a consortium of 7 partners from 4 different EU countries.The project partners, within the regional/statal Dual System in which they operate, have more or less informally created virtuous local ""ecosystems"" in the ICT sector to ensure effective local cooperation between the VET actors involved in the delivery of Dual training programmes, for the success of all (student/worker, companies, VET institutions).Such ecosystems normally involve:•VET institutions•Companies, Chambers and companies’ representation bodies•Workers' associations / Trade Unions•Universities •Accreditation and Certification bodiesThe project starts from the premise that within the partnership the partners have identified some cases of apparent good practices, that are success factors in the different Dual Systems of the countries involved, which guarantee the proper functioning of the ecosystems, in terms of: high quality of VET paths; raising the employability rate; effective work-based learning system; efficient skills certification system.“DUAL ECO” project will let partners observe and share good practices adopted in the 4 local “ecosystems”, confront together on them and evaluate which good practices have the potentiality to be transferred at European level; then, the partners will conduct an experimentation on some selected good practices, importing them into their local ecosystems and applying to existing VET Dual programmes, in order to evaluate the transferability of each good practice at a larger scale.To achieve this goal, the project will be articulated in 5 Short-term joint staff learning and training events:•one for each country involved (Italy, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom) – for staff of partners organizations (managers, teachers/trainers, tutors, researchers) - organized as Study Visits, combining on-site visits to relevant organizations, presentations, discussions, workshops and/or training courses. These activities will be aimed at studying the good practices implemented by each ecosystem, at sharing ideas and confronting on the models in place;•one in Italy - for staff of partners organizations (managers, teachers/trainers, tutors, researchers) – organized as Training in participatory technique, managed by professional facilitators, that will combine peer discussions and workshops.This activity will let the partners exchange the good practices and confront among them on lessons learnt through the four study visits. At this stage, the partner organizations must learn from each other in order to create a “Dual ECOsystems” model, including a set of good practices that can be transferred at EU level, taking into account the different national contexts.The model will be reported in an Handbook, drafted by the partner organizations and containing “good practices and methods for effective Dual ECOsystems”.Each local ecosystem selects the good practices to import. To evaluate their transferability, the good practices chosen will be applied in each partner “ecosystem” on a local Dual VET ICT programme (involving associated partners from the countries):•In Italy on “Junior System Administrator - IFTS in Apprendistato” (level IV EQF) – duration 1-year course, at Engim Lombardia – starting in October/November 2022•In Spain on “Specialization VET Programme on Cybersecurity” (level VI EQF) – duration 1-year course, at Maristak - starting in September 2022•In Germany on 2nd-year training of “Higher Education Apprenticeships Programme” on ICT (level VII EQF), at ITB Bremen – starting in September 2022•In United Kingdom on 1st-year training of “Higher Education Apprenticeships Programme” on ICT (level V EQF), at Belfast Metropolitan College – starting in September 2022Once set the good practices to be evaluated, the partnership will agree on general and specific “evaluation indicators”.Each local ecosystem will run an on-going evaluation on the effectiveness of the good practices applied.At the end of the programmes, a “Final evaluation on the effectiveness of the good practices applied” will be held by each local ecosystem.On the basis of the evaluation outcomes, each local ecosystem will draft a brief report on “Evaluation on the transferability of the good practices applied”, in order to improve the final version of the Handbook.The latest release of the Handbook can be shared in all UE national context for the application of good and transferable practices of the model developed (Dissemination of the project results)."

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.