"Cedefop's European Skills Index 2020 shows wide differences between European countries when it comes to skills matching. Indeed, according to Cedefop’s publication “Insights into Skill Shortages and Skill Mismatch” (January 2018), four out of ten employers in Europe are struggling to find people with the right skills. In a labour market heavily impacted by Industry 4.0 and SDG commitment (2 million employments will be created by the latter), and the rise of soft skills as a new area of interest in terms of qualifications, differences between skills offer and demand have widened. The context of the COVID-19 outbreak must also be noted, affecting the need of resilience as a fundamental skill; as the Commission has already stated, upskilling and reskilling programmes to protect workers from unemployment and loss of income to avoid permanent effect will be an essential tool to mitigate the effects of the crisis, with 59 million jobs at stake and those without university degrees in a higher risk (short-term job risk is highly correlated with level of education, McKinsey & Company, April 2020). Therefore, there is a crucial need for education and training systems to identify, anticipate and teach skills that are suitable for future needs, rather than to catch up with technological, demographic and environmental changes after they have happened. Vocational Education and Training (VET) is crucial to teach students, adults and workers the necessary skills and will therefore have a significant impact on the future of work.For all these reasons and with the objective of aligning the education and training provision with regional smart specialisation strategies (S3), the Stride for Stride project will work on building up the concept of Regional Skills Ecosystems. Six regions (Catalonia, Basque Country, Tuscany, Brittany, Varaždin, and Vestland) in five European countries (including high achievers, such as Croatia, mid-achievers, such as Norway, and low-achievers such as Spain, Italy and France when it comes to skills matching according to the European Skills Index 2020) will improve their capacity to identify skills needs and adapt their training provision accordingly. And this process needs to be done by engaging four main axes: public authorities, education centres (VET in this case), companies and the individual.Four workshops corresponding to the four steps of skills governance (adaptation, anticipation, transmission and use) will be organised in Florence, Rennes, Bergen and Barcelona between 2020 and 2022, with a double European-regional perspective that allow all the previously mentioned actors build together skills intelligence systems by means of exchanging their experiences (both though workshops and study visits) and taking part in multi-stakeholder open discussion hubs. These workshops will be attended by international regional representatives who wish to learn on the ground from each others' success stories and share their own, but also by local/regional stakeholders who will contribute to dialogue to build strong skills ecosystems based on the skills governance process.In this sense, the Stride for Stride project will add an international aspect to regional success stories, with a two-folded innovative aim:1.Tackling skills intelligence and forecasting at regional level to build regional skills ecosystems, and2.involving all relevant actors featured in the quadruple helix interaction system to help building powerful skills intelligence tools, not only as external ""validators"" of the process, but as an intrinsic part of it.A regional perspective for skills challenges mapping and forecast is of utmost importance to tackle the new opportunities that industry 4.0, SDGs and soft skills relevance are already opening in Europe. Regions allow a closer contact with citizens and are in a privileged position to assessterritorial economic, labour and well-being needs, including lifelong and lifewide learning opportunities. This project will also serve as a starting point for the development of exhaustive territorially-aware assessment tools that complement existing ones such as Cedefop’s national skills forecasts and OECD skills outlooks."

Small and family farmers provide the bulk of agricultural production at the European and global level. Their activities are critical to achieving sustainable rural transformation and secure safe and healthy food for consumers worldwide. However, rural entrepreneurs cannot survive without careful and targeted support and relevant advice, where raising the quality of Rural Advisory Services (RAS) are needed to effectively address modern challenges. For successful farming practices, the adoption of innovative technologies, and the fulfilment of market-related and administrative challenges, advisory networks have an indispensable role to play.The objective of the project is to strengthen rural advisory services to improve their standards through a monitoring and evaluation system that can simultaneously support the development of a targeted, personalized, work-based, vocational training programme and the establishment of a quality certification scheme. The term precision is not unknown in agriculture, however, we will demonstrate that – besides production technology - it can also be relevant and successfully applied in knowledge transfer, for the sake of service providers and their clients. The learning activities aim to develop competencies in specific areas where our primary focus group, the rural advisors lack or miss adequate capacity, while, by the results of the learning programme, we expect that the quality of work performance will be increased, upon which the certification scheme is to be introduced.Implementing partners will adopt a novel method of using a state-of-the-art (digital, online) service tracking and monitoring system besides traditional data acquisition techniques, to support the collection of more detailed information with regards to increased data quantity and quality, right from the field level (where the service actually takes place).The main target groups are 1) the rural advisors working at the field level (providing assistance for clients to solve their actual problems raising from the everyday practice and introducing innovative methods), 2) the service provider organisations, who coordinate the work of their advisors and responsible for the overall process, and as the secondary group, 3) the clients of the services themselves, primarily farmers and rural entrepreneurs.During the carrying out of the project activities, the partnership will develop six outputs, which are to be built upon each other. The first product will be a Competence Dictionary to identify main business processes, competences, categories, indicators and data sources specific to advisory activity. The Methodologies of RAMONES-PL will describe the process flow and related components of service tracking, monitoring, evaluation and precision learning. In the third step we will set up the information system of data management. In the next stage, the Learning Programme will be implemented in work-based setting, with the participation of 24 rural advisors and nearly 300 service clients. Parallel will run the activities related to certification, which contain the development of a proprietary market oriented quality assurance scheme according to the project concept, and the preparation for an international standard certification. All results necessary and suitable for effective dissemination in the project countries and EU wide, will be summarized and published in the RAMONES Guidebook.The methodology of the project follows the latest professional guidelines and policy recommendations developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and the Global Forum of Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), as well as several research findings and methods in the subject area. The innovative elements are related to the work-based, precision, personalized approach, and the advanced use of ICTs, by the digital platform and other tools.Expected performance of service delivery and reputation of advisors will be increased from the employer and the client's side, by higher satisfaction based on the better service. Improved knowledge, skills, increased specific and cross functional competences of the advisors will lead to enhanced confidence, validated by carrying a well-recognizable “badge”, which the industry and the clients accept and honour. Advisors will have opportunity to expand and deepen their farmer contacts. For the partner organisations, the project will provide better understanding of the used innovative approaches. Improved efficiency of the service provision, knowledge base maintenance and training implementation within the organisation will be ensured, as well as of taking end users’ perspective into account more systematically, using feedback loops for service development. The use of the QA scheme ensures enhanced professional image and positive recognition of the service provider as well.

"<< Background >>Gaining international experience is one of the common goals of the partner schools. We believe it is very important for students and staff to learn from, in and with other countries. This is not only about expanding professional knowledge, but also about personal growth. We would like to cooperate in order to jointly offer a contemporary education that takes into account the goals of sustainable development, environmental protection and actions to counteract climate change in the educational content. In order to achieve this, it is necessary to obtain, elaborate, compare and jointly reflect knowledge and innovations from other countries/regions.This is important not only for our trainees, but also for the staff, teachers and trainers who can raise awareness and provide students/trainees with the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to achieve the goals of sustainable development, environmental protection and actions to counteract climate change, and inspire them to learn and work abroad, adapt their own teaching to current needs and contribute to school development.<< Objectives >>The implementation of the project will lead to a collaboration to complement teaching content, skills and abilities in the context of horticultural education and training with regard to the goals of sustainable development, environmental protection and to counteract climate change. Intuitively, participants ""get used"" to questioning their actions in terms of sustainability and environmental impact and to look for ""green solutions"". As teachers and trainers are not only accompanying persons but active participants, this partnership also contributes to the goal of continuous professional development for teachers, trainers and educators and thus to the further development of the participating schools and institutions as a whole. In addition, it is intended to prevent the shortage of skilled workers and to prepare well the future professionals for the tasks that will be expected of them on the labor market in the near future. The protected setting and the relatively short duration of the respective joint practical lessons make it easier for the rather reserved or anxious students to come into contact with the unknown. Since vocational students in particular usually have fewer language classes in their training program, they are also less likely to dare to go abroad in coutries or regions wher another language is spoken. The protected framework of these LTT activities partly takes away their insecurity, initiates independence and leads to more self-confidence. Some students could also be encouraged to do another internship abroad or to accept a job abroad. The participation could also motivate some of the students or teachers to look more intensively at foreign languages and become more open to learning them.<< Implementation >>Within this partnership, we will organize several transnational project meetings. These will take place partly virtually in order to protect the environment and not to further climate change. Each partner will prepare a joint practical teaching week as a blended LTT or further training activity in the subject area in which their institution has a specialization or particular experience on the topic of ""sustainable gardening"", thus sharing this experience with the other partners and contributing to the achievement of the common objective. We also organize targeted teacher training in collaboration with the Association of European Horticulture Teachers. The following mixed LLT activities are planned by the different partners: At the Dutch partner on the topic: ""Living garden - living public space"", at the German partner on the topic: ""Planning and creation of perennial beds taking into account climate change and sustainability"", at the Latvian partner on the topic: ""Planning and design of plantings by taking advantage of modern technology"", at the Austrian partner on the topic: ""Possibilities of growing fresh vegetables in winter to reduce imports from faraway countries"", at the Croatian partner on the topic: ""Possibilities of infrastructural adaptation of the school to the current needs of the labor market and environmental protection"", and at the French partner on the topic: ""Functional approach of dry stone in its role as a regulator of the ecosystem"". Due to the fact that these are blended LTT activities, the participants will have to do common tasks before the activity, during the activity they will not only work practically, but also reflect and report on their activities together, and some time after their participation in the LTT activity they will answer a questionnaire again. In this way, they will again have to deal with the knowledge they have gained and the change in their attitude or their way of acting towards sustainability, environmental and climate protection that has taken place in the meantime. This will remind them again of the goals and further motivate them to work towards ""green solutions"". Dissemination activities during the partnership are also foreseen: Participants must report on their activities not only during the LTT weeks, but also beyond. Publications should take place on the homepage of the Association of European Horticulture Teachers, in local or regional print media or radio interviews, among family/friends and at work and in social media and in the environment of the respective partner institutions on their usual publication channels.<< Results >>Through the Europe-wide cooperation and the implementation of these LTT activities, the students and their teachers gain insights into how climate change is expressed in other areas, what approaches are being used elsewhere to counteract it, and thus receive suggestions on how they can act sustainably and in an environmentally friendly manner in their everyday horticultural work. The skills and abilities acquired in the course of such jointly conducted international teaching units remain much more firmly anchored in the trainees' minds than the ""usual"" teaching content. The impression of their participation will continue to have an effect even after they have finished school, and they will continue to apply their changed behavior toward sustainability, environmental and climate protection in their subsequent professional practice. As a result, some of the impact may carry over to employers, colleagues, and/or customers, for example, customers may be offered/recommended planting designs that take climate change into account, water-efficient irrigation systems, or the use of natural stone, vegetables produced in the area may be offered to a wider audience. Also, when planting and maintaining public green spaces according to methods that do justice to sustainability, environmental and climate protection, people not involved in the project become aware of this way of working and are motivated to think about it or imitate it."

<< Background >>The FlorCert for Future-Master (FFF-M) project was created as a logical continuation of previous projects that schools in the Florcerta network have successfully implemented. Through the project European Certificate in Floral Design - FlorCert 2012, schools have developed a tool for quality assurance in secondary school education for the profession of florist - FlorCert (European Certificate of Floral Design). Main result Florist e-learn book 2016 a common e-learning platform with an e-book for florist education was designed. Through the establishment of equal European competencies at the basic level, the e-book has ensured the quality of education in the partner countries. By analyzing previous projects and conducting a survey of participants, we realized that there is a great need for professional development of teachers and mentors with employers, who work with students of the profession of florist.There is a problem of teacher competencies in schools, and we also find this problem with employers. There is no formal education for teachers with these specific floristic competencies, and there are few in-service trainings that are not targeted for teachers and employers. The new project will deal with this problem - the levels of professional knowledge of teachers and employers from basic to master level. An important topic in the floristic industry has long been the production and use of biodegradable materials. All stakeholders in the floristic industry (producers of flowers and greenery, producers of auxiliary materials for arranging, florists individually and through various associations) make great efforts to view as many floristic works as possible from the aspect of sustainable development. And the education of future florists in this chain is the most important. Since there are no contents in the existing textbooks that would focus on the ecological topic, we decided to set up contents that will take care of the environment and encourage florists to devise alternative and environmentally friendly ways of making their floristic works with harmless and degradable material, recycling and waste disposal.Through the newly created Covid situation, we realized that online communication between student-teacher-mentors with employers must be improved. We will create an app to make it easier to track and share student achievement, to make it easier for everyone in line to work. The developed application will be the basis for facilitated international communication, exchange of ideas and expertise.Increased teaching competencies and employers' competencies - strengthens the quality of the school and the employer, which has a positive impact on the profession, and students will be more prepared for the challenges of the European labor market.<< Objectives >>The use of electronic technology has become a part of social life. Distance learning was only possible during the COVID pandemic, so it is extremely important to create an e-environment for quality education, rapid communication, monitoring and evaluation in the student-teacher-employer triangle. The advantage of using ICT technology is fast adaptation. Thus, we will upgrade the E-book with new current content, related to the topics of environmental protection and climate change from the perspective of florists. Following the EU's sustainable development strategy, we will try to raise awareness of the importance of the use of biodegradable materials, waste disposal, recycling in the project partner countries because they have quite different attitudes and practices (from conscious Sweden to Serbia). By using interactive content, we want to act motivationally on the student and improve his skills and knowledge.By implementing the project, we want to increase the quality of education for partner professions for the profession of florist, through modular professional development of teachers, provide them with cooperation and exchange of experiences at the international level. We also offer mentors to employers to increase their competence to work with students. Training modules for both will be set from basic to master with clearly outlined learning outcomes. So that everyone will have the opportunity to get involved in training according to their needs. Our goal is to strengthen the teaching staff and mentors in flower shops whose strengthened competencies will greatly affect the quality of schools. Such schools, which is our goal, will become desirable schools of floristics in which students will want to enroll. By using the developed application for florists, employers will be able to more easily find educated future employees with European-uniform skills and knowledge, and students will have the opportunity to find employment throughout Europe.<< Implementation >>In order for the project to run smoothly, a good agreement between the partners is needed. Contracts, financial plan, project management plan, general plan of activities, implementation plan, promotion, dissemination, evaluation will be developed. There are most activities in the implementation of the project. First, the project partner teachers will work on the development of modular professional development for teachers on the one hand and employers on the other. Each of them has different requirements and should have different competencies to work with high school students. Modular training will be conducted from basic to master level of knowledge and skills. Partners will develop a scheme and guide with clearly outlined learning outcomes per module. And they will test all modules with teachers, students and experts. To improve and facilitate the learning of already existing content within the e-book, we will record short videos with school students, following the chapters of the book. The video is great interactive content, doesn’t need translation, and teaches a lot. In addition, we will prepare various quizzes, memo maps, etc. to master the material to make the content more interesting for students. We will develop an application that will be used by students to monitor their work (as a portfolio), communicate with each other, communicate with the teacher and mentor at the employer. The application will be tested and access will be free. We will evaluate each activity through satisfaction surveys. These results will be available on the official website of the project, FlorCert, through links on the school website and all other channels that schools have. In all the mentioned places, the promotion of the entire project with its results and activities will also take place. In particular, project dissemination events in all partner countries online and live will be prepared. In order to achieve all the results, we had to organize LTT activities in which the partners first learn, analyze, practice. During and at the end of the project, the partners submit reports related to finance, administration and work on specific tasks.<< Results >>The results of the project are a scheme and a guide to modular training of teachers and mentors with employers, applications for florists, interactive content with the current topic of sustainable development, all texts in English.Project participants will receive:- new knowledge, skills and competencies from other professional fields- within the project activities also new soft, social competencies, knowledge of a foreign language - English will be improved, connections between partners will be improved and strengthened and permanent cooperation will be created for new projects in the future, better flexibility, self-confidence, personal and professional development- developed social and intercultural competencies, critical thinking and media literacy- will develop new ICT competencies and thus contribute to better digitalization of the learning process- According to LTT 1 and 2, they will gain Europass, new competencies and increase self-confidence and work performance.Partner organizations:- will already partially improve the flexibility of vocational training programs (VET) and labor market monitoring when testing learning content- use of e-platform / better digitalization and ICT competencies of teachers and students / interactive pedagogical tools- due to the development of personal professional competencies, teachers involved in intellectual results will increase the quality of teaching- due to project promotion, multiplication, online meetings - organizations will be recognizable, will have better student enrollment- teaching in organizations will be at a higher level of quality - strengthening the quality of the organization, international visibility- Due to project activities there will be a greater connection between employees and management within the organization- better openness to the local and wider environmentMentors with employers- the use of the application for florists directly connects them with students-future employees,- are acquainted with better vocational education and training,- local companies will be more competitive and successful in the market

For the evaluator of the summary repport. loggin on the results to this project. 2016-1-SE01-KA202-022127The loggin is on EU version and the Swedish version.Link: https://floristbook.floweracademy.se/User: erasmus-kaPassword: ErasmusKA2=