The 27-months project “Developing cross-sectoral cooperation for youth employability in the Western Balkans” aims to develop sustainable capacities of local stakeholders to foster youth entrepreneurship and employability in the Western Balkans, specifically in Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro.The project pursues the following objectives:-To strengthen multi-stakeholder cross-sectoral cooperation among public authorities, CSOs and the private sector for youth employability and entrepreneurship education-To promote entrepreneurial take-up and entrepreneurship education among young peopleFour work packages are designed to reach the objectives, those are:- WP1 Project management, monitoring, evaluation and learning- WP2 Piloting a blended entrepreneurship education programme- WP3 Multi-stakeholder cross-sectoral cooperation for youth employability- WP 4 Awareness raising, project visibility and disseminationWith these activities the projects intent to achieve the following results.-Community of Practice on Youth Employability in the Western Balkans is formed by stakeholders from the private and public sector-Private and public stakeholders commit to and engage into local and international partnerships for youth employability-Private business and start-up ecosystem partners are actively supporting youth entrepreneurship education in partnership with civil society-Young people have developed their entrepreneurial competences and increased their employability-First Young Entrepreneurship Learner Award is awarded to young people-A wide range of young people has been informed about the educational potential of Youth Entrepreneurship EducationThe project was jointly developed by eight entities (youth) CSOs, a regional umbrella youth organisation, a public municipal body and an umbrella organisation of young entrepreneurs – from Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo.

Digitalisation in education is increasingly gaining ground across the global and within educational sectors. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated this trend also in the VET sector. According to EfVET (2020, Recommendation paper following COVID-19) “digitalisation of work and teaching methods, and the use of online educational resources, guidelines and supporting tools has become critically important to learners and teachers” alikeIn a parallel trend over the past years, “VET institutions have realised that students and trainees need to learn soft skills before going to practice them in a job environment” (VET-GPS: Guiding Tools for Professional Skills - Quality framework for the cooperation in VET system, 2018). Soft skills are a game-changer for VET students seeking employment or striving for self-employment.Resulting from the research we identified three core problems that hamper the adequate soft skill development of VET students:-VET students lack soft skills for labour market integration because time for soft skill development is short in formal VET teaching-Potentials of digital and hybrid forms of education not utilised in the VET system-Lack of recognition and use of digital forms of teaching and learning inside formal VET educational frameworks and systemsIn order to tackle these core problems, the 24-months project “Digital quests for life skills” aims to contribute to the digitalisation of education in the VET sector through cross-sectoral cooperation for soft skill development of VET students.More specifically, the project pursues the following objectives:-To increase the integration of digital learning for soft skill development into VET education for business, computing and technical professions-To foster the recognition of digital and hybrid soft skill development programmes for VET studentsThe central activity of the project is to develop a unified hybrid learning programme on soft skill development of VET students. For the time being this programme is called DIGITALIS. It will be composed of two components:-VET Digital Learning Space for business, computing and technical professions-European VET Learner Award on soft skillsThe uniqueness of DIGITALIS is its gamified educational approach, the integration of practices and approach of the educational and the business sector, and the cross-sectoral cooperation that feeds into its development.While the VET Digital Learning Space is fully online and accessible from anywhere in the world, the European VET Learner Award combines distant learning components with a residential training phase and a public award ceremony.DIGITALIS is innovative because:-none of the few existing digital Learning Platforms in the VET sector uses a truly gamified approach to make learning a fun, challenging and rewarding process for VET students. Thus, the gamified approach of DIGITALIS is unprecedented.-the hybrid learning programme combining a VET Digital Learning Space and a European VET Learner Award is unique in Europe. No other programme like that exists.The development of DIGITALIS is side-lined by the realisation of two training activities and 9 multiplier events support project outreach, visibility and dissemination of its results.The project targets two distinct groups of participants as its primary target groups:-key VET stakeholders (e.g. VET teachers, HR personnel and WBL instructors, VET mobility coordinators and educational advisors working within CSOs)-VET students of business, computing and technical professions from Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and SloveniaAt least 360 VET education stakeholders and 1600 VET students are expected to use the VET Digital Learning Space during the projects pilot phase.While the VET stakeholders are expected to increase their competence to integrate and use digital and hybrid learning programmes in their daily education work, the VET students’ soft skill development is expected to increase their employability and self-employability.The project also expects to impact the VET education system locally, regionally, nationally and on a European level in the following manner: -An increased recognition of digital and hybrid learning programmes for soft skill development of VET students-An increased readiness to use digital and hybrid learning programmes in their educational work with VET students-An Increased the willingness to seek cross-sectoral cooperation for skill and competence development of VET students-An increase the readiness to participate in international VET cooperation on a European scaleThe project brings together a partnership of cross-sectoral character composed of a VET centre (HU), a teacher association (SLO), a private company (DK), a network of entrepreneurs (SK), and two NGOs (HU, RO) facilitating European cooperation and supporting VET learner mobilities across Europe.