Name of project: WorkQual - Workmentoring within a quality management system. Structure for cooperation between school and small and medium-sized Enterprices (SMEs).Coordinator: Verkmenntaskólinn á Akureyri (VMA). https://workqual.vma.is The project was based on two big ideas: First: Building a handbook and a framework with processes, necessary data collecting sheets and checklists for the work needed when preparing and following a student in a workplacement. Second: Structuring a network needed for strong workplace education opportunities in the community.The project partnership consisted of four colleges and two consultants. VMA in Akureyri, Iceland, Charlottenlund in Trondheim, Norway and Axxell in Finland, are vocational colleges offering many types of vocational study. NTA Jules Rieffel is an agricultural college in France working with small workplaces in agriculture. The consultants, IFSAT in the Netherlands, also connected with a re-integration program for young unemployed, and Broadshoulders in England, have been involved in developing many different things in vocational education, particularly the role of workplaces.The need for this project was identified when evaluating the WorkMentor http://workmentor.vma.is/wiki/index.php/Work_Mentor project. This was the 3rd in a series of projects dealing with the learner in the workplace using a portfolio of evidence to report on his learning progress (ProVoTrain project), a project for the support to and teaching of VET teachers who needed professional adaptation to blended learning (POÈTE project) and the WorkMentor project which developed training packages for work mentors guiding learners in the workplace. During this evaluation we felt that a solid support structure, a framework of agreements, arrangements and matching documents, could increase the efficiency of the learning placement and clarify the role of each of the three parties in the agreement.The main purpose of this project was to develop a system of processes, sheets, forms and inspections to use with workplacements that can be incorporated into the quality management systems vocational colleges or other providers work with. This was directly linked to the efforts of the European Commission when developing tools to use when comparing and cooperating within the scope of vocational education. ECVET, EQF and other tools established to facilitate the flow of students and qualified workers.The WorkQual project started by collecting information on which aspects different stakeholders wanted to discuss when looking at learning in the workplace. This was summarized in the Inventory of Needs Report. Some of the partners had formal meetings with local stakeholders and all collected opinions from employers, students and teachers. The common points made were written into the processes in the manual after the partnership had gone through all the steps and with suggestions from the experience the partners brought to the project.The final major output is a system integrated for the general European system proposed in the European tools. The manual is written to match the processes a Quality Management System proposes for planning and implementing a workplacement.It is the belief of the partnership that this system for working with students in workplaces will be of great importance now when many countries have been working on their vocational education systems. Often the responsibility of training in the workplace is placed on the colleges/schools/providers. This calls for a structure and a transparent system to use when placing students in workplaces and monitoring their competence.Even if many countries have good structure for this they are not taking the role of workmentors in the workplace into account. The general assumption was that there are three responsible partners involved: a college/provider, a workplace and the student. The system takes this into account so the education will be manageable for the college, not a burden for the workplace and it will be relevant and inviting for the student.Our goal was to develop a system that can be used in many sectors. We feel we managed to do this.Even if there are different competences to gain in the workplace for different vocations we feel there are general factors involved in the success of students. How can we match the student to the most suitable workplace? What does the underlying agreement look like? How can we support the students during workplacements? How can we evaluate the student without expecting workplaces and students to deliver lengthy reports? Will the workplacement be valuable for the student when entering the vocation? The same questions should be asked in every sector of Vocational Education and Training.The outcome of the project is that we think the manual can be used in different types of workplacement in different sectors.See http://hepg.org/hep-home/books/schooling-in-the-workplace

The increasing worldwide demand for agricultural products - which is attributable to population growth - has a two-fold impact, affecting on the one hand the value of the aforementioned commodities, and securing on the other the real agricultural income per labour unit according to Eurostat. Agricultural trade data confirm the specific trends as they showed a net trade of €14.3 Bn for the year 2012. Meanwhile, the farmers’ role is demanding as they have to face challenging environmental issues, such as climate change and the degradation of natural resources, as well as a stringent regulatory context which assures food quality. It is worth mentioning that economic returns from farming are not satisfactory and many farms are too small to survive as businesses.The plethora of concerns that have risen have created the obvious need for the amelioration of farmers’ decision-making skills. The Smartfarmer project has developed an innovative e-learning platform which would efficiently satisfy farmers’ agricultural and business information needs. The specific platform has materialized the transition to a new model of learning through gamification mechanisms which will enable the farmers’ voluntary engagement for the achievement of knowledge acquisition. E-learning initiatives based on adult education theories and distance learning methods are monopolizing the interest of various parts of society (education, enterprises, etc.) because they can reciprocate to user personalized demands. The proposed platform poses e-learning under a new context enhancing its inventory with innovative tools and approaches. The Smartfarmer specialized platform allows farmers to be trained directly, easily, and responsibly on matters concerning productive processes and the commercial exploitation of agricultural products.Project’s partnership perceives that gamification implementation combined with usable interfaces will contribute to the improvement of content conveyance and syllabus attractiveness. Project’s partners believe that our project could potentially contribute to a market reform resulting in both higher output product and quality. Furthermore, our project intends to promote agricultural development, commercialize farmer innovation with environmental friendly solutions, and improve food quality creating new opportunities in the labor market. A section of the platform is dedicated to end users (farmers). The farmers have a dedicated customized digital space in order to set up their own business initiatives, such us selling their products. Each member of the partnership network envisions a framework of sustainable business development combining lifelong learning process and a state-of-the-art educational method such as gamification applications.The current project brings together 7 partners from 4 countries composing a team with academic and enterprising competencies. More specifically it combines two higher education institutes with proven expertise in communication systems, agricultural entrepreneurship, and project management. One agricultural cooperation company SME with great hands-on experience in the agricultural sector with 6,000 members (farmers), an association of young farmers representing 5,000 members, an innovative SME (IT) in serous game development, and an NGO specialized in farming (NL). All partners employ experts in VET and dissemination to support the proposed project for impact maximization on a national and European level.

Context/background:The market for organic agricultural products is the fastest growing segment of the European agriculture products market, even in times of economic crisis. Because of the growing environmental consciousness of European consumers this trend is set to continue in the foreseeable future. The European Union has chosen to promote organic agriculture because of its recognized environmental (biodiversity, climate, animal welfare) and social (rural development) benefits. The lack of organic agriculture vocational training in many countries, including Macedonia, is one of the major obstacles in realizing this aim and therefore in enabling agriculture producers in these countries to benefit from this global growth trend. Objectives of the GreenPOP project:The goal of the GreenPOP Project is to enable VET Providers in Macedonia to deliver innovative training programs and courses for sustainable (organic) agriculture with focus on practical (on-farm) training for a) students from agriculture VET schools (from year II,III and IV) as future farmers/employees, but also b) develop vocational short modular courses for agriculture entrepreneurs/farmers/workers. The project will enable delivery of the courses trough capacity building of the teachers/trainers and potential work-mentors/organic farmers using innovative model of work placements for the learners.The objective is to create an operational and accredited (verified) vocational education program in terms of lifelong learning modular courses for organic agriculture in Macedonia, implemented by trained and experienced educational staff.The activities that will be carried out in the project are towards the strengthening the cooperation among the four Partners from Macedonia and three EU Partners in a view of establishing exchanges of practices, promotion, testing and implementation of innovative practices in the field of agricultural vocational education and training, as well as the facilitation of the recognition and validation of knowledge, skills and competencies acquired trough the formal, non-formal and informal learning programs that are to be developed.Number and profile of participants:Participants were: Students in the selected agriculture VET schools; Agriculture Entrepreneurs/ Farmers; Workers.Teachers and school students. The project involve more than 60 participants directly, together with 22 members of staff of the partners and more than 120 people taking part in seminars, conferences or workshops.Methodology:The project use a comparative approaches methodology with each partner testing the approaches to learning and agriculture development based on experiential learning practice. It also take a social action approach, making use of the input from learners, experts and stakeholders and testing learning competencies and tools in real-life situations.Description of results:1. Survey (inventories). A comprehensive document (Report) consisting data of organic agriculture production and regulation, education models and materials.2. Developed curricula/program for lifelong learning purposes for organic production modular courses. 3. Developed and implemented trainings for teachers/trainers and work-mentors. 4. Piloting of the program. The developed curriculum will be tested for the two target groups: Students and Entrepreneurs. Results of the piloting will be: a) An evaluation report and presentation of all piloting activities; b) valorisation (accreditation) of the short courses program in organic production.5. Dissemination actions. Activities that led to presentation of the GreenPOP Project model outcomes to potential users in Macedonia, but also inform and generate interest from other EU/Erasmus Countries. The concrete results are: A Dissemination plan, Presentation on dissemination Conference in Skopje and created and maintained project web-site.6. Partner meetings. 7 partnership meetings implemented in order to have smooth cooperation among partners involved. The results from this action are: minutes from the meetings, Interim and Final Report.Impact:A professionalized set of training curricula/cscenarios (for VET Students and Adult Learners) concerning organic agriculture, with its positive impacts for employment of people that consider training as a vital factor from their professional development, promoting rural development, bio-security, biodiversity, soil and water conservation as well as climate protection quality. The outcome of the Project is an operational and accredited (verified) education program for organic agriculture in blended format in Macedonia, and implemented by trained and experienced educational staff. The long-term benefit is to stimulate interest and knowledge-sharing around this topic and develop organic agriculture as business.