<< Objectives >>-increasing VET high school students’ cybersecurity knowledge and support their career transitioning into cybersecurity areas, -supporting the lack of VET teachers’ career guidance skills in career orienteering of their students into cybersecurity employment areas,-adressing the lack of VET schools and SMEs’ collaboration skills about providing new and practical learning interventions in cybersecurity field via the creation of cybersecurity internship program.<< Implementation >>-Conducting Kick-off meeting and Training (4 days) for VET teachers and VET students by cybersecurity experts in a comprehensive cybersecurity training course,-Employment of research activities to create methodological and practical guidelines of creating a cybersecurity internship program and a cybersecurity internship prototip, -Planning and executing various dissemination interventions to transfer our results to the targets.<< Results >>-methodological and practical guidelines of creating a cybersecurity internship program and a cybersecurity internship prototip will be created, -the VET students’ and VET teachers’ knowledge, skills and qualifications about cybersecurity will be increased, -VET students’ career orienteering skills, digital resilience and capacity to pursue careers in IT and cybersecurity areas will be supported, -Stronger collaborative skills between businesses/SMEs and VET schools will be developed.

<< Background >>The overarching ambition of LeadVET is to enhance vocational teacher education (VTE) and vocational education and training (VET) by developing sustainable university-school partnerships, together with leadership and networking skills for professionals in the field. Within VET, the connection between educational and occupational practices is crucial, as VET-Teachers work at the intersection of these practices. The profession of vocational teaching is constantly in transformation, as jobs and occupations change in response to societal challenges. Teaching and learning practices need to reflect this continual transformation.In particular, vocational teaching suffers from recruitment and retention issues because it is difficult for those employees in practical or vocational occupations to combine their professional work with teaching in a university context. In addition, the age and profile of possible recruits makes it more difficult for them to follow full-time study courses.LeadVET will address this problem through developing the positive aspects of this 'boundary-spanning' situation. Having both an academic and vocational perspective is an underrated characteristic, and those who can develop these dual characteristics are in a good position to:1) be attuned to the needs of vocational teacher students2 ) influence the skill levels of employees through effective supervision and training,3) to develop a research based vocational teacher education, closely linked to practice4) to be a positive force for collaboration and partnership in the VET ecosystem<< Objectives >>Overall aim: Better collaboration between university vocational teacher education, vocational schools and enterprises, which constitute the vocational ecosystem, leading to:Improved recruitment, retention, training and leadership skills and job satisfaction, for vocational teachers.The concrete objectives are:objective 1/PR1: identify tools for mapping networks and networking activities across vocational ecosystemsobjective 2/PR2: Create a model and mentoring system to bridge the theory-practice gap in vocational teacher educationobjective 3/PR3: Increase the potential for recruitment of quality candidates for VET teacher education through partnerships between schools, universities and employers, including initial teacher education and in-service or professional developmentObjective 4/PR4: create accessible learning materials to disseminate the above results, including bite-sized videos, for the leaders and key persons who will facilitate the above actions within partnerships and networks.<< Implementation >>The activities of the project will include: 1) Producing a robust theoretical model for leadership in collaborative or partnership in VTE, 2) Producing a framework for how to recruit and educate more VET-teachers by developing in-service training in partnership with VET schools and companies 3) Producing a VTE-student mentoring system in co-operation with VET-institutions that bridges the theory-pratice gap in VTE and 4) Producing Academic videos for bite-sized learning for VET/TVE leader and key personnel.<< Results >>The formal project results will include:PR1:Mapping networks and roles in Vocational Teacher EducationVTE/VET leaders move in networks to strengthen the theory-practice link and recruitment and take on specific roles there. Within a literature review, it will first be determined which networks in VTE/VET can be distinguished across countries. The different stakeholders will also be taken into account. In addition, the literature review will clarify which techniques can best be used to empirically record such networks. In the empirical part of this result, relevant VET networks will then be identified through interviews and other survey techniques.PR1 will support all other results. PR2: A model for in-service training in Vocational Teacher EducationWe will develop a model for in-service training and professional development structures in VTE, including curriculum design and learning practices with wide applicability over a range of VTE subjects, and geographical or educational contexts. The model will be based on three fundamental principles:1) Networking is crucial to vocational education, due to the need for direct connection between schools and potential employers2) Partnerships, in which all participants have trust, equal rights and responsibilities, should connect key players such as schools, universities, other VET providers and municipalities3) Mentoring is important for both VTE students and VTE educators, in order to share knowledge more effectively and to gain skills.dimensions to their work. The essential goal of PR2 is bridging the theory-practice gap in networks in, or related to, university-school partnerships and networks with enterprises.PR3: The essential goal of PR3 is bridging the theory-practice gap in networks in or related to university-school partnerships, by:1.Applying the theoretical model developed in PR3 to practice i.e. building a relevant practical collaboration network model to the Finnish context. The model can be applied to LeadVet partner institutions.2.Based on the network model, Haaga-Helia will develop an VTE-student mentoring system in co-operation with VET-institutions. The mentoring system will be adaptable to LeadVET partners’ national circumstances. VET-institutions thus have the possibility to develop VTE according to their interests, and their teachers are motivated to improve their skills and find inspiring dimensions to their work.PR4: This result, PR 4 will consist of training videos for VET/TVE leader and key personnel. The videos provide knowledge about how to contribute to establishing and maintaining sustainable structures and processes between university - school and trades/companies in order to enhance recruitment and bridge the gap between theory and practice in VTE and VET.We will initially prepare 7 BSL videos focused on one aspect of practice:•BSL-1 Video will be the general introduction of the LeadVETproject •BSL-2 Video will be about the role of student-teachers in VET•BSL-3 Video will be about the role of vocational teachers in our model•BSL-4 Video will be about the role of academic staff and vocational teacher-educators in our model•BSL-5 Video will be about the role of school leaders in VET networks•BSL-6 Video will be about the role of coordinators at school in collaborative partnerships•BSL-7 Video will be about the role of coordinator at university in collaborative partnerships

WorkSafe was a 28 month long strategic partnership that developed & implemented tools that makes work based learning (WBL) within metalwork and construction more transparent and safe. The partnership consisted of 6 partners from 5 different countries. The partners were: P1 = Axxell Utbildning Ab, Finland P2 = Charlottenlund Upper Secondary School, Norway P3 = ROC Noorderpoort, Netherlands P4 = Cfai Adamic, France P5 = Education and Mobility, Spain P6 = Ikaslan, SpainIn order for the intellectual outputs (IOs) to be usable and fill the needs of the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), SMEs and the Centers for Occupational Safety, unions etc in the participating countries were involved in developing, testing, evaluating and finalizing the IOs. The need for WorkSafe became evident as teachers started to raise concerns about students work safety during WBL. They felt there was a need to develop tools that improves students safety during WBL. After analyzing the problem more in detail we realized that many of the SMEs wants to improve collaboration with VET providers and that they need support, guidance and tools that clarifies their tasks during WBL. The WorkSafe partners have learned that even if improved work safety is a topic that is of importance in all European countries there are national differences when it comes to the implementation of work safety. This is why it was of great value that this project was done as a collaboration with partners from different European countries. WorkSafe aimed and did 1) collect, compare & clarify common standards relating to work safety and point out what standards are unique for Finland, Norway, Netherlands, France and Spain; 2) Make it safer and easier to send metalwork & construction students on WBL to these 5 countries; 3.) Created a WorkSafe Toolbox and 4) Created an Online WorkSafe Manual that can be used for eg. training/education/raising awareness. In order to reach these aims we collaborated with employers within our region. 6 transnational project meetings (PM) and 1- 2 skype meetings were held in between the PMs. During the meetings each partner kept the others aware of what steps they had taken to implement the outcomes of the project. Work meetings focusing on developing, evaluating and making amendments to the IOs together with silent partners were held regularly. Towards the end of the project each partners held a Multiplier Conference in the country they represent in order to test the usability and collect feedback on the outcomes. The project developed 2 Intellectual Outputs: 1) WorkSafe ToolboxTarget group: VET providers, teachers, students, employers & work mentors and other stakeholders. Aim: 1) improve cooperation between VET providers and SMEs within metalwork and construction, 2) provide VET providers and SMEs with tools that helps to improve work safety during WBL nationally and in Europe and 3) make collaboration more transparent. The toolbox will e.g. a) help to map problem areas and common obstacles, b) describe possible obstacles and suggest solutions and ways to address obstacles, c) describe minimum requirements shared by all and those who are specific for the partner countries and d) describe tasks/responsibilities relating to work safety during WBL 2) WorkSafe Online Manual Target group: Teachers, employers, work mentors & studentsAim: Create an online manual that can be used to educate students, employers and work mentors on requirements relating to improving work safety during WBL both nationally and in Europe. The Training Course will a) visualize the minimum requirements in work safety within metalwork & construction, b) bring up benefits of following and maintaining safety regulations during WBL, c) provide tools to maintain & supervise that work safety standards are obtained and followed, d) make the cooperation between student, work mentor and teachers more transparent, e) improve work safety during WBL, f) help interested parties to implement the WorkSafe Toolbox Expected and already noticed impacts/benefits 1) Improved work safety during WBL within metalwork & construction 2) Raised awareness of national similarities and differences in work safety in Finland, Norway, Netherlands, France and Spain 3) Raised awareness of the importance of collaborating with the SMEs in topics relating to work safety during WBL 4) Improved quality of WBL both nationally and during European mobilities 5) Improved cooperation between the teacher, student, work mentor (and hosting/sending partners during European mobilities) 6) Improved quality of the learning experience students have during WBL nationally and in Europe 7) Increased number of European mobilities as the VET providers and SMEs feel better prepared to host students from foreign countries.

Early school leaving causes an increasing level of concern in many countries. Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway all have well-financed, well-approved and well-structured upper secondary school systems. The proportion of students not completing their upper secondary education is worryingly high in all these countries. Early school leaving is known to be linked to a series of social variables, such as family income, parental educational level and grade of parental/friends support of the importance of learning and performing. The European labour markets are in great need of skilled workers and these needs are supposed to grow in the future. The future creation of values in Europe and our common welfare is dependent on the provision of skilled workers. More young people have to choose vocational studies, they have to perform on a higher stage and complete their education at school. A rising attention is given to what the schools can do in order to increase the proportion of students graduating on time. Formal education is increasingly important to get work, and this is even more important when the job marked is tightening and getting more global. In this project, six similar schools have cooperated to counteract early school leaving. The partners in the CSE-project are combined upper secondary schools, offering both general studies and VET. They are all of a comparable size, and offer many of the same lines of study. The partners in The Erasmus+ Completing Secondary Education project have been Charlottenlund Upper Secondary School in Trondheim (Norway), Verkmenntaskolin in Akureyri (Iceland), Techcollege in Aalborg (Denmark), Axxell Utbildning (Finland), ROC Noorderpoort in Groningen (Holland) and Richard Riemerschmid Berufskolleg in Cologne (Germany).The CSE-partners have made great efforts in reducing the early school- leaving problem, and have valuable experiences and successful measures to increase school completion on vocational studies.We have compared our efforts and measures, shared our practice to find “best practices”, made observations through job shadowing and tested and implemented good ideas and tools into daily praxis at our own learning institutions and communities. Due to cooperation with research environments in learning and behaviour, we can say that our results are developed on research-based knowledge.The partner schools have extensive collaboration with local working life, but practice different models from work based learning that have evolved over a long period of history, the dual model (Germany) and school based learning. We found that work placements and other forms of cooperation between school and working life play a central role in motivating young people to complete.This contact has to be established as early as possible to make the learning relevant and motivating.Through comparing our relationships to working life, visits, workshops and job shadowing, we detected the need to find methods to strengthen the links between theory and practice in general subjects as well as in vocational programmes. Other important factors were the learning environment and the teachers role as teacher, guide and support and the challenge of professional language. If the student do not understand what the teachers are talking about, he or she is likely to quit.We gained a lot of useful knowledge on the statistical methods and models. In view of this new insight we decided – in dialogue with the Norwegian national agency – to focus on disseminating information about the Norwegian and Dutch systems of drop-out and completion statistics as a source of inspiration for the other project partners in their continuous improvement of their practices in this field. The fact that the partner countries use different national statistics, and they are difficult to compare is not something that can be changes at school level within the framework of a project like this. Therefore, we decided to use the statistical tools as they are, and focus on the type of comparisons that they actually do enable us to make.Dissemination has played a central role in the project. We believe that well-working ideas from the CSE-project will prove efficient in other upper secondary schools locally and regionally, as well as on a national and international level. We have brought new ideas to county authorities, higher education and policy makers as well as to partners and leaders in working life. The findings, knowledge and results of the project counteracting early school leaving are spread to the partners’ networks, local networks, in our counties, and at regional, national and international levels as The EFVET networkThe results of the CSE-project and the working methods used in the project to extract best practice have increased the partners’ motivation and ability to find and adapt tools to counteract early school leaving in vocational education and training.

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