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