VocFlo responded to current developments in VET policy in the European Union. These in turn are a response to the economic policy objectives of Agenda 2020. The EU wants to ensure that by the year 2020 75% of the people in working age are in employment. The currently extremely high levels of youth unemployment in many regions of Europe make clear what efforts are needed to achieve this goal. One of the causes of youth unemployment is seen in the lack of employability of vocational training graduates. It is criticized that many VET systems are too remote from the economy and offer insufficient opportunities to acquire the professional and personal skills required by the labor market. The EU therefore calls on its members to reform VET. VET and the economy have to cooperate with each other to compensate for the existing deficits.At this point the project VocFlo starts. Educational institutions at various levels and professional associations of floristry, together with experienced project coordinators, agreed on conceptual foundations for economic and European cross-border vocational training in this sector. They described units of learning outcomes and assigned learning outcomes to them. In order to facilitate the transfer of these units of learning outcomes into educational practice, methodological-didactic guidelines were designed for teachers. The results of the project were examined during its runtime in a Methodology Workshop for teachers as well as a Student Camp for their practicality and compatibility with the different vocational training systems. A training program has been developed and tested, which will enable further teachers and multipliers in floristry to implement the learning outcomes approach in their institutions.To ensure sustainability and to support the transfer of results into VET practice, a network, the European Mobility Network for Vocational Training in Floristry, has been established and cooperation with new network partners has been initiated. In the future, this network will offer cross-border mobilities where participants can complete selected units of learning outcomes. The project's products therefore include a organizational handbook for mobilities. The course of the project is documented in a field report, which is also used to disseminate the project results.The project contributes to improving the quality of training in floristry (strengthening the economic relevance of training), contributes to improving the transparency between European vocational qualifications and opens up possibilities for strengthening cross-border training cooperation (mobilities).

"Vocational training is inconceivable today without the use of digital teaching and learning aids. Acquiring comprehensive digital media skills is one of the basic skills. Media skills relate not only to how we learn, but increasingly also to how we work.The increasing use of digital media in companies is accelerating the integration of technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), 360 ° video, IoT (Internet of things / sensors) and 3D printing. Appropriate didactic-methodical experiences with these technologies in vocational training are rare. These results particularly from the lack of teaching and learning documents in practical training and the lack of knowledge to work digitally. This means that company trainers and teachers at vocational schools cannot train learners, according to the current and expected requirements of the business world. This is particularly painful to see during the global corona pandemic. The lack of relevant knowledge of professional teaching staff, the use and the opportunities to convey knowledge with it, leads to a reduction in the occupational competence of learners, and it reduces the propensity to train companies as well as the demand for appropriate qualification offers, public and private educational institutions.In order to reverse this development, the vocational training staff needs structured qualifications for handling these technologies as well as the freedom to adapt these technologies to the respective operational processes. This particularly enhances the work of company trainers in SMEs, who usually lack the professional competence and the time resources for such activities. This also enables innovations from the amended training regulations in the areas of chemistry (chemical operator: 2018, chemical lab technician: from 08/2020), IT (2020) and electrical engineering / mechatronics (2018), in dealing with AR, VR / 360 ° video, 3D printing and IoT, to be promptly integrated into the training.The transnational project ""DIOS - didactic innovations labs - digitalization experts in VET"" will choose selected contents and concepts for the use in relevant teaching and learning processes for the occupational profiles: chemical operator, chemical lab technician, mechatronics technicians, electronics technician and IT specialist, or their equivalents, to develop, test, evaluate and transfer them in the 5 partner countries. This is done with the aim of setting up and operating industry-specific didactic innovation labs as well as to implement a digitalisation specific qualification concept for vocational training personnel.The integration and effective use of digital media requires the successful integration of pedagogy, technology and organization in order to enable and sustain innovative teaching and learning scenarios. The industry-specific, physical teaching and learning laboratories for chemistry, IT, electrical engineering and mechatronics serve to anchor these new technologies in the organization of the DIOS partners and thus in vocational training. The laboratories each contain a so-called ""Learning Lab"", for the qualification of teaching staff, and a ""Media Lab"", for tailor-made media creation. The corresponding, organization-specific need is recorded with the SELFIE tool, contents and formats will derived from it. This includes i.a. the creation of hands-on workshops and tailor-made teaching and learning content. The visualization of complex facts can lead to an increased motivation among learners, which leads to a more effective execution of working tasks as well as corresponds to a better learning success. At the same time, the attractiveness of teaching and training personnel activities in vocational training is increasing. The experiences are then published. The DIOS project activities are a contribution to a Vocational Training 4.0 and a reaction to demographic change.DIOS takes into account the different vocational training systems of the partner countries and the requirements in the classroom or practical learning environments. These include countries with predominantly school-based vocational training (SI) and countries with a share of WBL up to 50% (CY, NL and CZ). The cross-border cooperation enables an EU-wide application in various industries, since the needs of teachers / company trainers and students / apprentices are explicitly addressed, regardless of the type of vocational system of the partner countries in DIOS. The professional development of teachers / trainers is compared between the different industries. This would not be possible without the participation of institutions from DE, NL, CZ, CY & SI."

European education and training systems continue to fall short in providing the right skills for employability, and are not working adequately with business or employers to bring the learning experience closer to the reality of the working environment. These skills mismatches are a growing concern for European industry's competitiveness (Industrial Policy Communication Update COM, 2012, p:582 ). By 2020, 20% more jobs will require higher level skills. Education needs to drive up both standards and levels of achievement to match this demand, as well as encourage the transversal skills needed to ensure young people are able to be entrepreneurial and adapt to the increasingly inevitable changes in the labour market during their career. The scope and pace of reforms needs to be scaled up so high quality skills can support both growth and jobs (EU Commission Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes, 2012, p:2). Skills mismatch refers to a discrepancy between the demand and supply of skills on the labour market. In other words a situation in which the skills sought by employers are different from the skills offered by job-seekers or workers. In order to achieve excellence in VET, curricula must be systematically renewed, delivery must be constantly modernized and businesses, especially SMEs, must be actively involved. VET must be able to react to the demand for advanced vocational skills, tailored to the regional economic context. Within this context given, this project aims to develop a platform through which vocational education systems and the labour market, especially the SMEs, communicate interactively, while one side voting for/valuing the skills they need and the other side, that's the vocational systems answers by updating the current curriculum. Also, the training content developed on skills analysis and mapping through the ECVET Skills Platform is considered to serve the quality of vocational education and training systems, giving the experts responsible for teaching technical skills the mission of teaching also the personal and conceptual skills.Target group of the project is vocational education and training institutions, teachers/trainers in VET, SMEs, employers, decision makers, non-governmental organizations and trainees. It aims at creating a channel among the members of the target group to keep them updated about the needs and requirements of the firms and the provided skills at educational institutions. During the project, the first step will be to identify qualifications of CNC Machining according to EQF as Level 4. Then, secondly, defining the expectations of the firms will be taken together with the opinions of technical teachers. In this context, ideas and expectations from firms and individuals in decision-making positions in the labour market will be gathered and a list of the necessary skills required will be established. Then, with ECVET Skills platform that will be installed on the internet, a ranking of importance will be listed by firms. This is the most innovative part of the project. Following this, the training curriculum in vocational high schools for CNC Manchine will be renewed and/or developed in order to ensure the most needed top ten skills. Trainers will be trained on this platform and will be informed about how they should implement their education. Then, hese trainers will apply the top ten skill-building training curricula on the qualification list from the digital platform.The students and teachers will be able to access into the videos and teaching materials on the platform and assess their own learning with the rubric provided. Therefore, they will have higher self-esteem in terms of qualifications and the market can be more satisfied in with hiring more qualified employers. On the other hand, top ten skill lists created by firms; and all teaching materials and videos created in a dynamic fashion can be downloaded openly to all individuals in order to ensure that the created platform reaches wider population. Thus, as students, teachers, and trainers easily access these information, the widespread impact of the platform will be increased.Establishing a vocational education and training curriculum and extensive content by using an online web portal to develop a system for skills and qualifications that are supposed to be based on the needs of the labour markets is the innovative wall of the project. One of the pioneering innovative elements will be enabling countries to obtain the skill ranking of CNC machining. The proposed web portal can be seen as one of the most key innovations of the project, since it will be accessible by all related stakeholders.

“Partnership for ECVET” (PECVET) was from the beginning a two year project that was extended for 38 months because of COVID-19 pandemic. Even with these challenges partners reached it’s main objectives and more. Till the end of the project we saw the importance of unified ways of ensuring VET learners training quality and transparency of their gained skills. the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) principles that connect with the National Qualification Framework (NQF) and the European Qualification Framework (EQF) is still and will be valid and one of the best tools in practice and to use it within all European VET organisations. Developed PECVET tools contribute to the goal greatly. We have made analysis, prepared guide, templates, forms, database for VET organisations who are preparing students for chemistry, cosmetics, mechanics, gastronomy and health care/ pharmacy. Those tools are applicable for any study area. One of the biggest impacts was developed database of unit of learning outcomes (ULOs). In there we have succeeded to include even passed Erasmus+ projects’ (EREIVET, Using ECVET for Agricultural program) created ULOs as well. In total teachers can find more than 120 (including for firefighting, agriculture, electrician, social care, business administration). Beyond the project we will still invite others to share to expand this database. Project results impacted greatly our target groups: -At least 6 VET schools and providers which improved VET learners education procedures-42 VET teachers who took part in the 3 trainings off/online and became experts on ECVET principles-More than 6 VET learners took part in exchange practicing the tools-More than 12 social partners were reached for work with ECVET tools-More than 8 new concrete partnerships were created for VET learners mobilities using PECVET tools-Various target groups and stakeholders were reached through dissemination activities (almost 36 000 participants through on/offline and other channels) Partners have created these tools for VET teachers and providers across the EU:-Report revealing the situation of ECVET integration in VET education in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, Norway, Cyprus and Italy. It also provides the base for VET teachers to understand -Portfolio of LOs and ULOs containing on-line database of LOs and ULOs that is open with many examples-Manual on how to create ULOs-Implemented training course resulted in creating Mobility manual – a guide helping to make the mobility project management smoothly going and problem-free-Methodological guide which helps VET schools to identify and use appropriate methodology and created tools to test and implement ULOs in work-based learning environmentTwo multiplier events (off and online) reached various stakeholders who enriched our discussion and project outcomes.Even if there are current changes of ECVET system at the European level, we see from our partners and other colleagues around Europe that ECVET tools will continue be relevant and best way to ensure quality of VET learners education and transparency of their gained skills. We see potential in micro credentials for credit system solution and possible continuation area to work on. Further project ideas were already discussed and concrete plans are set for new partnerships within VET learners mobilities where ECVET tools will be used.

"The main purpose of EUROPA-MEISTER has been to describe the knowledge, skills and competences of Master craftsmen in the Painting/Decorating sector at level 6 of the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). The EUROPA-MEISTER certificate represents a seal of quality for services rendered to clients from qualified Painters in Construction which will be delivered by the International Association of Painting Contractors (UNIEP) and selected experts gathered in examination’s committees.The project’s objective was achieved in five specific phases which correspond to the different activities, known as Intellectual Outputs (IOs).As a first step, the IO1 described the competencies, knowledge and skills (CKS) at level 6 of the EQF for the Painting trade. Some units of learning outcome, particularly required for the European dimension, were added: Unit U6-5 EU Law and Law in Europe and Unit 10 General Education with the subunits U10-1 on Digitization and U10-2 on (English) Language. Within the framework of the IO2, the Matrix of competences was translated into the national languages of all project partners and entered into the Multilingual Skillsbank, where qualifications’ descriptions also for other professions are classified in the same format.With the IO3, the formal structures and the procedures for the EUROPA-MEISTER issue were defined and are available as guidelines for the cooperation of European Vocational Institutes in the form of a Manual. This output creates a link of the different country-specific requirements for the qualification up to level 6+.IO4 being another fundamental part of the project, enables the desired qualification with a suitable instrument. Based on the learning outcomes described in IO1, documents were adapted for an e-learning course system for cross-border Meister training at level 6+ of the EQF. The lecture notes are available in German and English and future candidates will dispose of them through a digital platform. Furthermore, individual learning contents of competence areas were successfully tested with young learners from the painting sector. Teachers, trainers and company tutors were involved in a transnational testing and orientation phase in a working group, in line with the realized learning, teaching and training activities (LTTA) at the School of Painting in Baden. The test was successful and the results provided important conclusions for the further development of the learning materials. The course system itself, i.e. the concrete offer of bookable courses, will be further developed by the UNIEP experts’ committee after the end of the project.The IO5 was entirely dedicated to ensuring the transnational quality protection by introducing, in a detailed manual, regulations, working methods and competences for the EUROPA-MEISTER Committees and its experts. Some examinations, in addition to national tests, have been included especially with reference to digitalization and English language knowledge. Furthermore, a supplementary qualification will be now acquired, in the theoretical or practical context, at European Master Schools, Educational institutions and/or painting establishments, through a mobility programme (""EUROPA-Walz"") for a period of 4 weeks (such as special training courses on historical painting techniques, concrete remediation, corrosion protection, fire protection coatings, ect.).This Intellectual Output was developed under the leadership of UNIEP and will continue to be supported by this European umbrella association in the future. It will ensure the sustainability of the project and also its permanent development capability. IO5 made it clear that for the first time, individual career planning as well as a largely time- and location independent learning qualification at level 6+ in the painting trade is possible.At the concluding Multiplier Event, the attention with which the European public already perceives the EUROPA-MEISTER project was made visible by involving high level European stakeholders. The successful completion of the project laid the foundation for further development and implementation processes. The great complexity of the content of the EUROPA MEISTER project has shown that qualification at Level 6 and further professional qualification measures are an important requirement in order to avoid economic damage and deficiencies. Through the umbrella organization UNIEP and its member associations, further European countries will benefit of its results."