dualTRAIN main objective was to build a sustainable approach to the dual vocational training System in Portugal, Spain and Germany. The goal was to create a first approach to the implementation of the dual system in the shoe sector of Portugal and Spain and to develop and improve the cooperation of the actors of the different learning venues in Germany. Other objectives of the project are: to characterize the German dual vocational training model; to identify the factors of failure and/or success of the dual system in other contexts than the original one; to assess the feasibility of incorporating a dual VET system in Portugal and Spain in the footwear industry; to learn about the opinion of a set of economic and social actors with responsibility and interest in VET, about this incorporation; and to make policy recommendations aimed at Portuguese, Spanish and German policy makers concerning the potential adoption and adaptation of the German dual system to Portuguese and Spanish reality, considering the focus in the footwear industry.By setting the basis for a future implementation of the dual training model in the partners’ countries, the partnership initially intended to fulfil the following objectives: Boost skills and employability; Modernize education, training and youth work; Increase the job opportunities for young people.According to a study prepared for DG Enterprises & Industry in 2012, the 2nd most challenge mentioned by companies, when asked the challenges they will face in the next 5 years, were the availability of skilled staff. Moreover, considering the serious situation of youth unemployment in Europe, national governments need to change the way of integrating young people into the labour market and ensure their permanence in the medium term. These policies must improve the match between supply and demand for labour, reducing youth exclusion in the market and also meeting the needs of businesses in terms of job profile. The dualTRAIN project work plan created a new training curricula based on the dual training model and it was implemented a pilot to evaluate the reaction of the target groups. During this phase we have also invited relevant stakeholders and national authorities to examine the benefits and impact of the application of dual system in Portugal and in Spain, in an attempt to have a formal recognition.The partnership of the project is composed by 6 partners, with a balanced mix of skills and expertise: 3 Footwear Technological Centres which are representatives from SME from the Footwear Industry; 2 Higher Education Institutions with large expertise in the development and implementation of pedagogical studies; and 1 consultancy company with background in daily business activities bringing important competences in terms of project management.The partnership considers that the work that was successfully developed in the dualTRAIN will contributed to the long term fulfilment of the following objectives:- Boost skills and employability: through the design of methodology and mechanisms and a supporting pilot test that reduces recruitment costs, improves the quality of formal and job training and the share of knowledge and experience between trainer and trainees.- Modernize education, training and youth work: the dualTRAIN project allows for the transfer of knowledge for the application of dual system to other sectors and countries;- Increase the job opportunities for young people: frameworks allow for better recruitment (which contributes to long term employment) and provide a better skills and jobs matching.The impact of the project on a local, regional and national level is directly related to the structure of the footwear industry in Portugal and Spain. Shoe production has a high degree of geographic specialization both in Spain and Portugal. The project’s activities were organized in these areas to ensure target groups and stakeholders have direct contact with the results. It is also important to emphasize that the long term goals of the project are to raise awareness about the dual training model as a tool to increase footwear industrial competitiveness, and facilitate the future implementation of the dual training model in the target countries. Even so, the methodology used in the dualTRAIN can be replicated to other countries and even to other business activities. Finally, the dualTRAIN identified some challenges which need to be overcome in the near future. The successful implementation of the dual training model in Portugal and Spain is also dependent on the ability of the two countries overcome them: HOW to organise the work-based training in the running production without losing productivity? HOW to select and train company’s tutors? HOW the shoe industry and the VET schools can have a deeper collaboration in terms of training contents and practical experience? HOW to make the shoe industry and other traditional industries more attractive to young people?

CONTEXTAs the footwear sector rapidly grows into an integral part of the European economic growth,providing more than 260.000 job opportunities,the need of Europe for global exports becomes even more decisive for the European enterprises.This case is driven by the fact that Europe is culpable only for 13% of global exports,exporting around 15% of its production outside EU.Concurrently, the European financial crisis still has a negative impact on the sector with a notable number of businesses dropping down and their turnover decreasing significantly due to lack of adequate skills to sustain their operations within a competitive global market.SOLUTIONThe BOOST4Shoes project developed an open,all-inclusive training program for boosting skills towards a more efficient use of the Internet as a sales channel to enhance cross border business activity resulting in higher competitiveness,less business failures and thus increased revenues to ultimately benefit the EU economy.After the completion of the training, all participants in BOOST4Shoes were able to retain and improve their knowledge and skills,acquire new high-quality competences and continue their professional development by implementing the recommended strategies.PARTICIPANTSThe project envisaged the following target groups:Directly:-EU Footwear SMEs-Sales managers and professionals dealing with the footwear sectorIndirectly:-VET training organizations,trainers already providing entrepreneurship,eCommerce,ICT related training or looking to introduce such a training offering,business coaches-SME chambers,Business Innovation Centers,entrepreneurship associations,public officials responsible for entrepreneurship/growth/VET. OBJECTIVEThe purpose of the project was to help entrepreneurs of the footwear sector improve their skills and knowledge in e-Commerce strategies supported by the smart use of ICT/eBusiness for generating revenues through cross-border sales.PARTNERSThe partnership comprised the following organizations:-CIVIC (UK):a digital strategy agency with e-Commerce expertise-COIN (Cyprus):an educational technology & knowledge dissemination company-CRE.THI.DEV (Greece):an NGO focused on action plans for local communities and SMEs-CTCP (Portugal):a VET centre supporting all companies of footwear cluster-ISC (Germany):a research centre supporting the footwear industry-TUIASI (Romania):a higher education institute researching in footwear-DANMAR (Poland):a software development company and VET training centre ACTIVITIESThe project delivered a complete training program on cross-border e-Commerce for footwear sector SMEs,following a concrete methodology:-The first step was a comparative analysis of the current state of play between e-Commerce practices implemented by SMEs in partner countries and winning practices in countries outside the partnership.The aim was to identify the actual needs of the target group in order to form a training program tailored to them.-The next step was the validation of the needs by representatives of the target group in order to address and describe the learning outcomes forming the Online Sales Manager profile.-The training methodology and set of e-Commerce strategies were based on the validated needs.-To materialize the recommended strategies and support their implementation in real life,the partnership then developed the Online Sales Manager (OSM) modular course comprising hands-on actions linked to ECVET system with supporting tools.The course is implemented within the Online Sales Strategy Genie,a virtual environment that promotes personalized learning pathways at individual SME level and delivers the most important actions based on the user profile.-Together with the OSM,a personalized tool delivering a re-modeled course towards skills retention after the implementation of the actions was developed in a dedicated virtual space serving as a Learning Motivation Environment (LME) in order to complement the training program towards lifelong learning.15 trainers were trained upon the methodology and results in order to deliver the course in a blended-learning environment.All results were tested and evaluated during a piloting period before the final release.RESULTSThe main results of the project are: -OSM Training Content -ECVET supporting tools -Online Sales Strategy Genie -Skills Retention Service -BOOST4Shoes Academy LONG TERM BENEFITSSupported by the BOOST4Shoes Academy,a virtual space developed for the sustainability of the training program,SMEs are able to implement all recommended strategies ensuring sound e-Commerce practices,improving sales’ performance through enhanced cross-border capabilities and capacity to respond to new trends and consumers’ needs,increasing EU’s SMEs competitiveness within a global market.ACRONYMS-TPM: Transnational Project Meeting-LTTA: Learning Teaching & Training Activity-ME: Multiplier Event-IO: Intellectual Output-PQP: Project Quality Plan

"During the last ten - fifteen years, there has been a decline interest of young people in footwear manufacturing occupations in the majority of the European Union Member Sates despite the high level of unemployment in the most traditional footwear manufacturing countries.At the same time, footwear industry entrepreneurs have problems to find employees with appropriate knowledge, skills and qualifications to perform their work properly. Moreover, administrations from East European countries did not have Vocational Education and Training formarly recognised during several years, and consequently the VET offer is very limited and often not existing in countries like Poland.The consortium of the Shoes Made in EU project decided to respond to the above problems by developing an innovative e-training material related to an updated curriculum of a footwear technician that would respond to the needs of both stakeholders. On the one hand, it would attract young people to the footwear profession as well as would give entrepreneurs certainty about the level of education of their future recruits. To achieve such aim, the consortium:- Updated and developped a new curriculum, based on the experience of Germany, Portugal and Poland;- Prepared training contents in accordance with the needs of the labour market;- Defined a model of education based on ECVET principles (enabling the mobility of young people) and compatible with workplace learning;The curriculum developed as well as the entire qualification path were therefore the basis for the development of didactic materials, which were implemented on a modern e-learning platform. The platform environment is an innovative tool to present knowledge to young people. Teaching materials are mainly displayed on PowerPoint presentations and instructional videos presenting the various stages of footwear production. In total, 14 modules have been developed:Unit 1: Footwear industry;Unit 2: Product engineering;Unit 3: Materials in the footwear industry;Unit 4: Cutting;Unit 5: Pre-stitching;Unit 6: Stitching;Unit 7: Pre-assembly;Unit 8: Assembly;Unit 9: Finishing and packaging;Unit 10: Production and productivity;Unit 11: Bonding;Unit 12: Quality and quality control;Unit 13: Health and safety;Unit 14: Communication and group work.After each session, the learner has the opportunity to solve a short test to verify the level of acquired knowledge.The next step was to the development of guidelines for those workers/ tutors in charge of conducting internship in the company. WBL (work base learning) is an inseparable element of gaining appropriate knowledge in the footwear profession. The guidelines provides interesting tips for the organisaiton of the internships and will bring the greatest benefits to the trainer and the trainee.All project activities and outcomes have been elaborated in consultation of footwear stakeholders (entrepreneurs, vocational education specialists, research institutes, etc.) under a format of a different ""round table"" for each of the activities. This was the most appropiate method to respond to the real needs of the industry.The actions taken and the goals mentioned have led to the following results:An update curriculum for the profession of footwear technician;A description of the path of education for the profession of footwear technician;Didactic materials divided into 14 modules;A handbook for theoretical online training;Guidelines on the implementation of practical training for VET teachers and business managersThe short-term impact has mainly related to:- The footwear sector has been involved in project activities. At least 300 respondents in Poland and 200 respondents in other partner countries;- Students and interested people who took part in the pilot test. At least 40 people from Poland and 30 from Portugal and Germany, a total of 100 participants;- Entrepreneurs who participated in the pilot phase of the WBL part;The project has have an impact on entities involved in the partnership, but above all on:- Enterprises with unqualified staff - already at the stage of the pilot test, during the project's duration, the entrepreneurs' great interest in the resulting didactic tool could be observed;- Vocational and continuing education institutions suitable for the Ministry of Science in Poland - use of materials for formal and non-formal education;- Young people seeking their professional path;- Institutes and training centres;- Participants in the activities of the different round tables.Significant impact is expected due to the consortium network relations: partners were selected not only because of their experience, competence and expertise, but also their connections to VET and businesses in the footwear sector in their respective regions and / or environment work, and, above all, because of their relationship with their respective public authorities."

Dual Vocational Education and Training (VET) or apprenticeship schemes as a promising approach to overcome economic crisis in south Europe and to accelerate economic speed-up of former socialist states in East Europe are since years high on the agenda of European (e. g. European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeships) and national policies. Consequently a manifoldness of approaches and projects have been started to support Work-Based Learning (WBL) in “all of its forms”, for a comprehensive overview see for example webpage WBL-toolkit (https://www.wbl-toolkit.eu). But when having a closer look at these approaches it has to be stated that many of them are rather far away from “real” apprenticeship schemes; most measures are internships, learning projects, simulations, etc. – and lack of sustainability after the end of projects` funding. To discern our approach from internships or learning projects, we refer to “curricula-driven WBL”. In our ERASMUS+ project “Integrating Companies in a Sustainable Apprenticeship System” (ICSAS) we worked (beside others) on the question, under which circumstances a successful curricula-driven WBL-pilot of 1 year can be integrated into the formal VET-regulations of Portugal (PT) and Romania (RO).Another approach on policy level to increase linkage between VET and the labour markets have been Qualification Frameworks (QF). To achieve transparency and comparability of qualifications, National Qualification Frameworks (NQF) were established in the European countries and have been connected to the European Qualification Framework (EQF). In the last years already many papers were published, arguing that general Qualification Frameworks, might they claim national or transnational relevance, are somehow nothing but “a paradigmatic case of travelling educational reforms” (quoted from Bohlinger 2019). On the other hand, some evidence that Sector Qualifications Frameworks (SQF) could be of added value for enhanced transparency of qualifications in the respective sector has been published.Against this background, we have drawn three conclusions for our research and development project:•To include “sustainability” not only as a flowery phrase – but as a core element in our approach.•To try to stop “travelling” of QF via giving an anchor in the form of a Sector Qualification Framework (SQF).•And thus; consequently, to focus on one sector; only: Industrial shoe production.Our project worked on the following questions:•What could be learnt in real work-processes?•What should be learnt in real work-processes?•What are the supporting or hindering factors of including curricula-driven WBL in the governing of national VET-Systems?•Is there any added value by Sector Qualification Frameworks (exemplarily)?We found no “objective” or “hard” barriers for developing apprenticeships in countries with traditionally school-based VET; but a row of “subjective” or “weak” factors, like scepticism about quality of Learning Outcomes (LO) from curricula-driven WBL, concerns that apprentices are exploited as cheap work-force, uncertainties about roles of involved stakeholders, etc.. Despite these factors, we successfully designed, implemented and piloted a one-year lasting curricula-driven WBL in Portugal and Romania, in both countries a couple of learners benefitted and some dozens of skilled workers were trained for their role as WBL tutors. These curricula became part of the official apprenticeship career pathways in the Romanian region of Iasi and colleagues are negotiating with the other regions and national authorities about a broader implementation. In Portugal, ICSAS-curriculum became the core of a new national VET profile in shoe sector that is currently (autumn 2020) in the process of being developed and approved.Apart from this, we developed a SQF (level 2-4); a mapping of the PT, RO, ES and DE qualifications from industrial shoe production with the potential of a benefit for holders of qualifications from the sector of industrial shoe production. The SQF is open for the leveling of qualifications from other countries.All products and their linkage to the different Intellectual outputs (IO) are published under the result-tab of the project website http://icsas-project.eu/results/. Default language setting is English (EN). The language versions of the products in Romanian (RO), Portuguese (PT), Spanish (ES) or German (DE) can be consulted via choosing the corresponding flag in the right corner of the top menu.

The European footwear sector has been changing and it demands now much more specialised expertise and new skills that are suitable to the company’s specific requirements towards new business models, innovative and high-tech technologies, design and styling, environment issues, etc. To be competitive, companies must be able to adapt to these changes. The latest needs for skills in European footwear industry, performed by European Sector Skills Council for TCLF industry in 2014 identified various drivers of employment and skills that are influencing and shaping the TCLF sector, including the footwear sub-sector, such as: environmental change, economics and globalisation, technological change and consumer demand. The TCLF 2014 Report revealed that “five times more jobs are to be opened for highly qualified employees than for low-qualified employees by 2025”. Within this context, the necessary qualifications for working in the European footwear industry must be redefined for the labour market to promote skilled professionals to the industry.The SHOEMAN project aimed to provide these instruments for the footwear sector and to offer to the existing and aspiring managers the most up-to-date required skills, training needs and information. As such, a set of 6 intellectual outputs was created by the partners, targeting the project objectives, supported by management activities and an exploitation plan that ensured the dissemination of its results and their future reuse. These outputs were: a) the development of a research report, based on desk and field research, depicting the state of the art for the footwear sector, basis for the development of the other project outputs (2,3,4,5,6) and a comparative study of the footwear sector which can also be consulted by external stakeholders interested in studying the industry; b) the development of a European Qualification Framework (EQF) of the New Manager for an Efficient and Innovative Footwear Industry, a descriptor of qualifications based on learning outcomes and with ECVET scores; c) the development of the MOOC “New manager of the footwear industry”, a freely accessible and open licensed training platform dedicated to the improvement of knowledge and skills of managers and potential managers; d) the creation of the Virtual Challenge Community, a community made of relevant stakeholders active in the sector of footwear, that served as a platform for the Innovative Footwear Products Competition and that lead, in the end of the project, to the launch of a crowd funding campaign for the winners of the competitions; e) the development of a Book of lectures for the Intensive training course; and f) a Decalogue of the 10 benefits deriving from the collaboration between companies, research and training centres in developing innovative footwear products. The consortium also conducted a training activity with the virtual presence of trainees (due to the COVID 19 pandemia, the planned C1 training in Romania couldn't be conducted in physical presence but was done online).The intellectual outputs developed by the SHOEMAN consortium are concrete and transferable. As an example, the SHOEMAN MOOC reached more than 1400 students not only from the EU but from all over the World. The content can be exploited even after the project conclusion, both by the partners and by other stakeholders. Managers and potential managers are thus offered the opportunity to access the MOOC on the platform even after the end of the project and the world of Education, Research and Industry will have the opportunity to be part of a community which will be the ground for developing innovative footwear products, new projects and common initiatives. Another example is the research activity implemented during SHOEMAN that became the starting point for implementing research activities in the field. SHOEMAN aimed to and reached a large number of persons inside and outside the partnership, using different communications activities and channels by promoting the project and its results among European involved and/or interested organizations, and at a national and regional/local level, by promoting the project results among target organisations and end-users. Almost 150000 persons are estimated to be able to be informed about the project and benefit from its activities, including VETs, policy-makers, associations and organisations dealing with footwear, universities, research centres, managers of the sector and trainers.The SHOEMAN consortium was established on the basis of combining the different backgrounds, experience and expertise of 10 partners from 8 countries, who had experience in implementing transnational projects in the field of vocational training, also for the footwear industry. It is clear that this approach allowed to perfectly complement each other's expertise reaching success with very high quality results..