Countless educational institutions across Europe are enduring a period of rapid pedagogical transformation as teachers, trainers and other academic staff are increasingly having to rely on technology to deliver blended or online learning to their learning cohort. The same is also true of learners who have also had to make seismic shifts as a response to the Covid 19 pandemic, contact limitations and physical distancing measures. The crucial issues we now face are; are teachers appropriately equipped to deal with the shift in pedagogical or technical terms? And have education managers considered the end users' needs and perspectives? To switch effectively to online learning, three overarching requirements need to be fulfilled; access to the internet, the right technology, skills to use the technology. We have seen a rapid transition to online learning across the board, where professionals who might have been previously 'resistant' to using technology to support their teaching and learning, or lacked confidence to make the transition, have now been forced at pace to gain experience and expertise with a wide array of digital tools. To ensure that learning was disrupted as little as possible, educators had to quickly install, adopt and become experts with digital tools — Online learning management systems, video conferencing tools and messaging platforms etc — just to make sure students could access course materials and communicate with teachers. In many ways the pandemic and necessary safety measures have, and still are, forcing educators to 'flatten the learning curve' to the point where staff and learners should be more comfortable engaging with learning tools and online technologies. By managing the learning curve effectively we could see a shift in educational culture, and the ability or willingness for educators to collaborate, becoming agile agents of the technological change. But is this the case across the sector?The use of digital content in all levels of education was relatively uncommon before the Covid crisis. Only 20% of countries had digital learning resources in teaching, and only in some schools. Worldwide, a mere 10% of countries had robust digital learning capabilities offering some of the educational materials available outside of school. According to the World Bank, no country had a universal digital curriculum for teaching and learning. These numbers paint a picture of the efforts that governments and schools had to take to rapidly move to distance learning to ensure continuity of learning. (europeandataportal.eu/)Pre-pandemic, in 2019, only 8% of people aged 16 to 74 in the EU reported that they did an online course in the 3 months prior to the survey, a minor increase compared with 7% in 2017. Compared with 2010, the share of people doing an online course doubled from 4%. Young people, aged 16 to 24, were generally doing online courses more frequently than the average adult population. In 2019, 13% of young people reported doing an online course in the last 3 months, compared to 9% among adults aged 25 to 64. Among older people (aged 65 to 74), only 1% did an online course. Even larger differences between the age groups are observed in one further aspect of online learning activities: communication with instructors or students via educational websites or portals. In 2019, 28% of young people aged 16 to 24 reported to have communicated with instructors and students online in the last 3 months, while only 7% of those aged 25 to 64 were doing this. (ec.europa.eu/eurostat)Widespread and affordable broadband access is certainly one of the means of promoting a knowledge-based and informed society, in 2019, the share of EU households with efficient internet access had risen to 90% from 50% a decade before, while 73% of the most commonly connected mobile devices were smart phones, laptops and tablet computers. However, across all of the Learning Curve partner countries there is still a digital divide, although it varies significantly country to country. Given the existing digital divide, new shifts in education approaches and expectations might even risk widening inequality even further. In preparatory research, all partner countries reported less than satisfactory access to the internet with devices 'dedicated solely for learning'. The quality of online education doesn't simply depend on access to internet, it also requires the right technology, and the requisite skills to use and deploy them for learning. The digital divide could deepen if the effectiveness of education is directly linked to access to the latest technologies, and without special attention to the pedagogical theories and demands that underpin their use in the classroom. Learning Curve proposes a 'one stop shop' for educators to match theory with the new found technical demands and expectations, and take their next steps into delivering effective online learning and assessment that is critical in this uncertain time.

The ‘care gap’ is the difference between the need for health and social care for older people & the capacity to provide that care through family, friends or professional carers. Across the EU there is a shortfall of care workers with care providers finding it very difficult to recruit and retain staff. HELPcare proposes to help close the care gap via better management of the education and training of care workers to develop a more professional workforce that will attract recruits and has recognised progression pathways. The problem:1) The EU population is aging rapidly2) Many care workers are engaged in the informal economy3) Health & social care workers in the formal economy find it very difficult to access training and development opportunities;4) Qualifications for care workers are not a pre-requisite for employment & there are no agreed education and training standards across the EU for this sort of work.5) Health and Social Care work is seen as undesirable and low status with no recognised routes for progression into wider caring professions and with no HE-based training available in this specialist area for managers/leaders of care provision. The overall aim of HELPcare is to develop and transfer innovative practices in education for the qualification and professionalization of health and social care workers as well as encourage people to view health and social care work as a positive career choice with recognized routes for progression through VET and from VET to HE. Objectives:1. To develop a model based upon best practice for training and regulation standards for existing home / healthcare workers that can be adapted and adopted across the EU either nationally, regionally or locally dependent on setting2. To work with those currently providing home /health and socialcare services (via undeclared labour or via provider organizations), VET establishments and users and commissioners of homecare to develop a model of CPD to develop pathways to professionalisation and provide new routes for progression from home /healthcare work into the wider range of health and social care and to explore the potential of HE-based qualifications in health and social care management.3. To explore existing health and social care qualifications in partner countries and develop a new model of work-based/VET-based learning outcomes for health and social care that will fit into the HELPcare framework for professionalisation. a. Includes developing skills mapping tools for existing care workers to assist in their effective CPD & the development of a careers guidance portfolio aimed at highlighting the possibilities of a career in home health care4. Develop a transnational network and community of practice comprising service commissioners, policy makers and VET providers to disseminate best practice in health and social care workers education and CPD throughout the EU.Our participants included health and social care workers from both the formal and informal sectors (with over 550 care workers providing data for the project via inverviews and surveys), vulnerable older people who make use of care workers (and the families of vulnerable older people), employers of care workers in the formal economy (over 200 care employers were engaged with the project) VET providers, HE providers, commissioners of care from statutory bodies, third sector and local, regional and national government agencies. We exceeded the original recruitment targets for participants and conducted activities including a survey of 550 care workers to establish educational level & need, interviews with 100 care workers to further explore barriers to education, interviews with 100 older people to explore the impact of untrained versus trained carers on their lives, work with VET /HE providers to establish clear learning outcomes for VET based training and potential for HE training at level 4. Work with employers to develop models of work-based learning & commissioners to explore best practice in care, training, recruitment & progression.Outcomes include: An online course of CPD for care workers & pilot of this, careers guidance framework, skills mapping tools, progression pathways, ECVET learning outcomes, a conference to share our findings, policy briefings, information for commissioners and employers in strategies for professionalizing the workforce and best practice in financing training and regulating care work, briefings for HE providers on potential for progression to HE.Impact: bridging the care gap is essential if the EU is to manage the rapid demographic change taking place. This project will help raise the profile of a critically important issue & has the potential to offer innovative ways of using education & training to professionalize & thus develop an under-valued workforce that currently has difficulty recruiting and retaining workers. Longer term it will assist in moving people from the informal to the formal economy.

"<< Background >>The aim of this partnership is to tackle the issue of adult training and more particularly that of seniors.The project partners wish to continue the work of inclusion and diversity in adult education and improvement of the training of seniors.To help seniors overcome the obstacles encountered in accessing opportunities and fighting the potential source of discrimination based on age.There is a lot of evidence that 50+ seniors who keep on working stay socially active and healthy. Also, seniors have plenty of experience, know-how and can contribute to the success of their employers. Other research referring to the evaluation of the roles of entrepreneurship suggests that seniors' self-employment builds their self-esteem and motivates them to take on new tasks and perform well at these tasks.The EU's population is aging rapidly. As a result, the number of workers leaving the labor market over the next few years will be significantly higher than the number of new workers. In many industries, securing the supply of skilled labor will therefore be a major challenge for companies. Studies and surveys have shown that those 65 and over or ""retirees"" are ready to work or consult part time, which could clearly fill the ""gap"" in the supply of skilled labor.In summary, there are many advantages to training seniors while facilitating entrepreneurship. Successful local concrete experiences should be used to reflect on the appropriate implementation tools implemented in EU countries. In this type of project, because the implementation must be immediate, locally applicable and scalable throughout Europe, the consortium will provide innovative but concrete actions, and will rely on their development to fuel intellectual productions.In addition, when it is time for the affected population to return to work, the unemployment rate could be so high that it will be difficult for older people to return to their previous jobs, thus promoting the (re) employment of older people and independent work for seniors is very important.Finally, we are currently learning, in a period of economic / social / political crisis such as that created by the rapid spread of Covid-19, that our dependence on classic macroeconomic rules where employment is the variable of economic health must be reassessed. , the values ​​of autonomy and entrepreneurship must also be revalued and encouraged.The proposed model for promoting the entrepreneurship of senior citizens of the SENEXIA project will be tested in 6 EU Member States. This cooperation strengthens the respective capacities of the consortium partners and allows the production of high quality deliverables with a potential for transferability to other countries.The Erasmus + 2021 plan on adult education and training supports actions that address digital transformation, through the development of digital readiness, resilience and capacities. SENEXIA aims to strengthen and improve digital skills for senior entrepreneurship and the use of European digital skills frameworks to support educators, citizens and organizations.<< Objectives >>Addressing this age discrimination by developing educational and innovative solutions to promote “access to training” for senior employment and entrepreneurship.To achieve this goal, the SENEXIA project offers four production results:- Training program for senior entrepreneurs to support the transformation from traditional entrepreneurship to digital entrepreneurship.- Developing interactive infographic to improve senior entrepreneurs digital skills- Empowerment and narratives: Case study -Storytelling - successful & inspirational narratives of senior workers, self-employed and senior workers' employees supported by their employers to become entrepreneurs.- Development of a Mooc platform to strengthen the digital skills of senior.<< Implementation >>The SENEXIA consortium propose a solution to improve the “access to training for seniors’ entrepreneurship to address the age discrimination by developing educational and innovative solutions. Partners will gather representatives of the relevant stakeholders in their local working groups to ensure that the opinions and perspectives of the target groups inform the development process. The consortium will implement the following activities PPR1: SENEXIA will present:- the mapping of existing barriers in access to training and learning requirements to foster seniors entrepreneurship.- a training program for senior entrepreneurs to support the transformation from traditional entrepreneurship to digital entrepreneurship.PPR2: SENEXIA will create:- interactive infographics to support seniors entrepreneurs in digital readiness and support in personal skills development to handle failure, success, and innovation- will create the content guidelines for the interactive Mooc online platform, to build key competences to support seniors in their needs in entrepreneurship and digital skills.PPR3 SENEXIA will present:An Empowerment and narratives: Case study -Storytelling - successful & inspirational narratives of senior workers, self-employed and senior workers' employees supported by their employers to become entrepreneurs.PPR4: SENEXIA will develop a Mooc platform to strengthen the digital skills of senior entrepreneurs and a learning platform to improve the training of seniors.The consortium will organize pilot workshops in each partner country during month15 and a seminar will be organized in the consortium during month16 and the final partners conference will be held to present all materials produced during the project.- Dissemination, quality management, impact assessment and risk management exercises will be undertaken by all partners at appropriate times during the whole project.<< Results >>The SENEXIA project will develop materials and tangible resources available to trainers.- Training program for senior entrepreneurs to support the transformation from traditional entrepreneurship to digital entrepreneurship.- Developing interactive infographic to improve senior entrepreneurs digital skills- Case study - Storytelling - successful & inspirational narratives of senior workers, self-employed and senior workers' employees supported by their employers to become entrepreneurs.- Development of a Mooc platform to strengthen the digital skills of senior.All results will be produced in all partner languages. All the resources developed will be available online and made available to all interested parties.Each partner will pilot the materials and training program with associated partners.Local networks will be formed in each country and these networks will be used as the main training environments for seniors.It is also estimated that 120 men and women in total (20 in each country) will attend the piloting events.By the end of the project, beneficiaries will have acquired the digital skills necessary to improve their entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial activity and all parties will have tools to fully access the digital world."

Improving learning outcomes of VET and enhanced transfer of competences into the workplace are at the centre of national and European policies. Regular evaluation and improvement at the classroom/workshop level contribute to this goal. They are, however, highly dependent on teachers’ and trainers’ competences of providing tailored training, reflecting on the learning process, evaluating outcomes and transfer and improving their provision accordingly. These crucial competences are rarely taught in initial education and training of teachers and trainers. Neither are they included in quality management and personnel development at the institutional level as a comprehensive analysis of 130 LdV and Grundtvig QA projects conducted in the QALLL project (www.qalll.eu) has shown.QUALITOOLS aimed to meet this demand: The project tried to enhance quality of the actual learning process and its outcome by equipping teachers and trainers with the necessary transversal skills. It combined top-down strategies in QM and with bottom-up QA tools for teachers and trainers and tried to show how a pedagogical quality approach on the practitioners' level can be embedded in traditional quality management. It supported the non-formal, work-based learning of ICT teachers/trainers in a field still largely unknown to them: evaluation and quality assurance. It thus aimed to enhance the general capacity building of VET professionals and also contributes to the further development of EQAVET.Added-value of the project: So far, quality methods for teachers/trainers have only been developed and used on a small scale and in a fragmented way. A coherent and comprehensive approach to improving teaching and learning through evaluation and quality assurance on the classroom level is missing. Additionally, the scope of existing tools is limited. The added-value of QUALITOOLS was to gather existing tools, revise and adapt them to the target group, develop additional tools for areas not covered and provide a new comprehensive approach which is practical and easy-to-implement. In a nutshell, QUALITOOLS aimed at:- enhancing the professional development of those working in ICT training- fostering sustainable bottom-up quality improvements at the level of ICT training institutions - ultimately enhancing learning outcomes and learning transfer in ICT training provision.Target groups: The project focused on initial and continuous training in ICT since this branch is at the vanguard of developments and an early adopter of innovative approaches. Within ICT training, all key actors were addressed: primary target group were ICT trainers/teachers in technical schools and VET institutions providing non-formal or formal further training in ICT as well as tutors in ICT enterprises. Enhancing their pedagogical competences in evaluation and quality improvement was at the core of the projectThe secondary target group were managers in ICT training institutions/companies who received guidelines and a training programme on how to implement the quality tools. ICT students were the ultimate beneficiary. They could benefit from a higher teaching and training quality. Main products and activities: The main products are the QUALITOOLS handbook and database containing 65 quality tools for ICT trainers/teachers. They focus on using needs assessment, reflection, feedback, evaluation and monitoring to improve the quality of the learning process, learning outcomes and transfer of learning. The tools include 20 existing good practice QA tools of 3 EU projects (selected in the QALLL study), which has been revised and adapted, and 45 new tools. They latter were researched or (further) developed based on an analysis of the QA situation in ICT training. The comprehensive database provides a simple, quick & EU-wide online access for the target groups to the QUALITOOLS through the project website www.QUALITOOLS.net.To ensure an adequate use of the tools by ICT teachers/trainers, a capacity building f2f & a webinar training programme were developed, valorised & evaluated. Another important output is guideline for VET managers that helps to implement the QUALITOOLS approach on the institutional level. Extensive report of accompanying study including recommendations on the use and usability of Qualitools contributes to project sustainability.Project results will further be available at project website beyond project end.Dissemination included mentoring approach, valorisation workshops with practitioners, QM/VET manager workshops, 2 international webinars for ICT teachers/trainers, an international valorisation conference in PL, 2 national valorisation conferences in AT and EU dissemination through EPRA and partner networks.The partnership covered a wide geographical scope (PL, AT, BG, PT, UK and EU) and was well-balanced in representing different types of organisations. It benefited from the diversity of partners’ specialisations, cultures and VET systems they come from.

<< Objectives >>The DISCO project supports the C-VET needs of Guidance Practitioners, including employment and careers counsellors, who face radical challenges and changes to their practice. It will improve their digital competences and support guidance and counselling services providers in planning and implementing the needed digital transformation in IAG, as part of a cultural shift in VET, where the digital transformation of the labour market can be fully taken onboard in the daily work of guidance staff.<< Implementation >>DISCO is implemented with applied research to develop methodology concept; a participatory learning programme involving at least 50 guidance practitioners, job and careers counsellors, supporting 500 guidance clients, through action learning sets in 6 countries; accompanied by an expert, online transnational group of senior facilitators to co-create and validate results, culminating with a Methods eGuide for facilitators who develop CVET for guidance practitioners through action learning.<< Results >>DISCO presents a response to the need for a step change in IAG and jobs/careers counselling practices. The project results include (a) a Methods Concept for guidance practices and experiences in crisis contexts‘ via distance and blended counselling; a learning matrix of competences ; Modular blended learning programme for distance, blended and online guidance and counselling; and a 'Train the trainer' Methods e-Guide.