Cooperation & Projects

Cooperation & Projects

erasmus+_208COOPERATION WITH THE EU COMMISSION

Many EBSN members are actively engaged in the European Commission’s work for the development of adult learning policy. The EU Agenda for Adult Learning defines the focus for European cooperation in adult education policies for 2012-2020. In the framework of the Agenda, the Commission coordinates a network of national coordinators (NC). The role of the NCs is to contribute to implementation of the EU Agenda on national level and to ensure liaison with the relevant ministries, stakeholders and other partners, with a view to promote and improve policies on adult learning.

Several EBSN members have been appointed National Coordinators. As the result from a restricted call for proposals issued in 2012, the NCs are working in EU funded projects which contribute to the implementation of the Agenda in their respective countries.

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INTERNATIONAL PROJECT ACTIVITY

EBSN takes part in European projects, represented by its Secretariat. The Secretariat engages in project generation among member organisations and takes up the role of project partner at different level.

Projects with EBSN members in their partnership are presented in these pages.

EBSN is also pleased to share its members´ good practice. If you are an EBSN member and you would like to share your project with us, do not hesitate to send us a message: secretariat@basicskills.eu.

 

CURRENT PROJECTS

 

EBSN-PDS

The Professional Development Series is an EBSN initiative to respond to the need for professional support of the teacher, trainers, and other professionals working with designing and implementing learning opportunities for adults with low basic skills. The development of the first (entry level) set of online courses was allowed by the grant awarded within the Erasmus+ KA3 program and utilizes the immerse experience and knowledge in teacher training of EBSN partners and member organisations (project partners: DRLLE, Folkeuniversitetet, NALA, PTE, SETU, lead by Progress Hungary as EBSN Secretariat). The development work also offers an excellent opportunity to innovate training practices, engage in flexible recognition and accreditation and disseminate experiences in the whole network.

Our PDS Project supports teachers, adult educators, basic skills trainers, and tutors to develop their training skills and methods to help people upskilling pathways to ensure or enter a position in the labour market. The new online learning opportunities will be available in several languages and can be adapted into the national CPD frameworks. The main elements of the series of MOOCs:

 

Young Service Steward Program

NEET 4 Needs – YSS Project for a better future (2022-2024). The Program aims at preventing the growing competence gap between activation programs and the skills needs of the labour market. The objective of the Program is to provide 360° competence upgrade (both digital and life skills) to NEETS to help them into employment and work and become better involved and included in local communities.

The project partners (CPIP, GENTIS, MODUS, Prios lead by Progress Hungary) work together on the outputs of the program. It will come as a toolset to improve digital skills, life skills, counselling, mapping tool, and an innovative Impact Prospect to show how the NEET Youth can become a part of the solution, instead of being the problem of weak local communities. This will be in the form of e-learning, guides, LMS, and virtual tools.

 

Valuable Creativity

Alongside basic skills, creativity is one of the most important skills that need to be developed in order to achieve personal goals in the 21st century. The Valuable Creativity Project is an Erasmus+ program implemented in 2021-2022. The Project has taken the challenge to introduce methods and pathways on how artists and adult educators can introduce creativity methods and processes in companies, it aims to present methods and solutions for fostering and developing creativity.

The Project introduces an open education resource (i.e. OER) along with 2 open courses (i.e. MOOCs) addressing the nature of creativity, and how it becomes a systematic way of working and learning within the daily company development.

The learning materials are available now:

 

CITO project

Around 22% of European adults have only obtained a lower secondary education level at most. Without these skills and with low level of qualification they are at higher risk of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion. To address these challenges, the European Council adopted the Recommendation on Upskilling Pathways in 2016. It aims to help adults acquire a minimum level of literacy, numeracy and digital skills and/or acquire a broader set of skills and a qualification. The Check In, Take off (CITO) project involving three countries, Malta, Ireland and Norway, is a result of this recommendation. CITO’s solution is to have an effective and independent assessment of one’s own skills.

CITO has three main outputs, which include mapping survey, a SkillsChecker tool and training and outreach toolkit for stakeholders.

 

Bridging Barriers

The Bridging Barriers project aims to contribute to the professionalism and professionalisation of teachers in adult basic education in Europe by developing new approaches to make visible and systematise the specific skills and competences applied in adult basic education.

The project’s key goals include:

  • Developing a competence matrix for competences used in delivering adult basic education, applying proven approaches (VQTS) in the field in order to enrich the visibility and systematisation of competences of educators.
  • Developing a competence-based training (curriculum, methodology, design and materials) for educators in ABE.
  • Supporting the development of a European profile of ABE and enhancing networking among teachers in the field.

 

DigitALAD: Preparing Adult Educators for a Digital World

Building the capacity of adult educators to face the digital challenges and opportunities of the technological world.

In the future, 9 out of 10 jobs will require digital skills, as digital technologies are already used for work and employability in many sectors from education, training and healthcare to transport, farming and the information and communications technology industry. According to the Digital Skills and Jobs Policy, 16 Member States including Ireland, already recognised the importance of the development of digital skills of their citizens and are in the process or already adopted relevant strategies aimed at enhancing digital literacy and skills, while other countries such as Latvia, Greece, Cyprus, Belgium, and Spain did not yet. The above hurdles are calling for collective transnational efforts to educate adults and prepare them for the digital world we live in. 

Objectives: To address the gap and needs of the field, the DigitALAD project’s objectives are to:

  • Build the capacity of adult educators to become digitally literate in their teaching practices
  • Build the competencies of adults to use digital tools for employability
  • Develop innovative quality resources for adult educators/ trainers and adults
  • Promote awareness on the importance of digital skills for adults in Europe

 

Overcome: Positive career guidance for low skilled adults

Although Europe has been recovering from the high unemployment of the recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown that was implemented has a significant impact on local and global economies. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that more than 25 million jobs will be lost in the coming months, as a result of the outbreak. Current data show that by the end of 2019 the unemployed in EU-28 were 15,475 million. At the same time, low-skilled adults have limited labour market prospects compared to other individuals with more qualifications (OECD, 2019), with unemployment having a huge psychological impact on them.

OVERCOME aims at:

  • Building the skills of career counsellors and adult educators to better support low-skilled adults.
  • Building the psychological capital of low-skilled adults.
  • Developing resources with quality material, curricula, toolkits, and OERs to build the competencies of low-skilled adults and their educators.

 

Upskilling adults 45+, with migrant background – UPAM 45+ is an Erasmus+ project aiming to provide solutions for better integration on the labour market and in society of adults 45+, with migrant background, through basic skills learning. .In this project 6 organizations from Romania, Spain, Greece, Netherlands, Germany gathered together in order to develop integrated solutions necessary for adult education providers in order to support (re)migrants, adults aged 45+, to acquire basic skills: entrepreneurship, digital and soft skills, and/or, to validate their competences. This way, adults 45+ are supported, in a holistic way, for social and professional inclusion.

 

One Step Up – Learning to Learn – OSU-LL is an Erasmus+ project aiming to ensure better chances for young people in rural areas and urban periphery areas to become aware of the learning process and to develop the transversal learning to learn competence. The project “One Step Up” is implemented in a consortium of 5 partners which includes Romania, Greece, Italy, Poland and Portugal. “Learning to learn” is an approach that helps young people to maximize their learning outcomes and to update and improve their basic skills, so they can progress in the learning process. This transversal competence supports the development of other key competences and focuses on: Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills; developing critical analysis skills and critical reflection; problem solving; working with others; planning skills; skills to improve and direct their own learning to help them become autonomous learners.

 

OERup-logo-transparentThe OERup! project takes up the need to promote and foster the successful implementation of OER (Open Educational Resources) and OEPs (Open Educational Practices) in adult education in Europe in order to widen participation in Open Education. In the frame of the project two EBSN members and their European partners develop a training concept for teachers and staff in adult education institutions.

 

 

eu-macedon-Vocational education and training: New approach for effective social inclusion – is one of the few projects implemented in Macedonia focusing on the topic of reintegrating the prisoners into the society through non-formal education. The project is implemented by the Association Community Development Institute in partnership with DVV International, Germany, both EBSN members. The network also provides individual experts to the project.
The overall objective is to contribute to the creation of favourable environment for reintegration of the offenders into the society. The project activities provides opportunity for prisoners to learn new skills and to be competitive on the labour market after their sentence is served. More information

 

Strategy To Raise Awareness and Improve, Generalize and Help Tackling European Needs for Basic Skills / Straighten Basic Skills is an Erasmus+ project aiming at creating a systemic and multiperspective view of all successful indicators in a comprehensive strategy to effectively promote work related basic skills training for adults. In this project 6 organizations from Austria, France, Germany, Norway, UK and Romania gathered together in order to develop the concept and methodologies at stake, and do adapt this model in their countries, approaching it through implementation of 6 pilot projects focusing on 2 of the success indicators defined in previously.

 

COMPLETED PROJECTS

elinet_logoEBSN is playing a major role in the work of the European Literacy Policy Network (ELINET). ELINET aims to gather and analyze policy information; exchange policy approaches, good practice, and initiatives and raise awareness of the importance of acting now to reduce the number of children, young people and adults with low literacy skills by 2020. ELINET is formed of 79 partner organizations from 28 countries. There are 19 EBSN members involved in the project, contributing to all aspects of the work of ELINET, in particular leading on the analysis of policy and practice in adult literacy. In the Autumn 2015 ELINET will publish reports on adult literacy policy in the member countries as well as presenting examples of good practice. For more information see www.eli-net.eu

 

MANORKA project – component on promoting lifelong learning, community learning and digital skills development among local governments in Hungary. The project component implemented by EBSN member organisations (VOX from Norway, the Association for Lifelong Learning and Modus Foundation from Hungary) intended to implement an empowerment strategy addressing both municipality leadership and municipality officers and creating capacity in local governments to efficiently promote lifelong learning both in the municipality organisation as well as in the local community and activate their citizens. The empowerment strategy was focusing on delivering skills and competences to local government officers and citizens which enables them to act actively in this filed. More information

 

SEA_150Specialization for European Teachers of Basic Skills for Adults – SEA – is a Learning Partnership within the Grundtvig / LLP programme that brings together European researchers, teacher training institutions and education providers of basic skills instruction to adults.

 

 

alfie

ALFIE, Alphabetisation of Immigrants to Europe – ALFIE is a Learning Partnership within the Grundtvig / LLP programme, and it gathers policy makers, researchers, teacher training institutions and training providers in the field of “alphabetization” (initial literacy) for adult immigrants.

 

basket_60

BASKET,  Professional Development of Basic Skills Trainers – The BASKET partnership has partners from university and research as well as partners developing national models, curricula and training modules for the professional development of teachers teaching basic skills to adults. BASKET also has partners that act as policy advocates in this field, and partners that provide lifelong learning programs for the general public.

 

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EUR-Alpha, European Network for Adult Literacy and Numeracy -Eur-Alpha was a European network of exchanges between literacy and numeracy practitioners, learners, trainers, researchers, policymakers. It was founded in 2009 and counted 16 partners coming from 12 different countries. Eur-Alpha aimed at supporting and developing best quality practice in literacy and numeracy in Europe by: –  The development and support of the learners voicing of opinions and participation – The improvement of the educational practices facilitating learners self-determination and participation.

 

inbalance

InBalance – InBalance has been developed by a team of European research and learning institutions.The purpose of the project is to support and develop adult tutors of numeracy and provide structured and engaging materials for learners of several abilities. InBalance is a realistic & systematic methodology based on the needs of individual learners & their practical everyday experiences.

edam_

 

EdamThe EDucation Against Marginalisation

 

 

MIA

“Mathematics in Action” (MiA) was a European project funded by the Grundtvig 1 action, within the frame of the Socrates programme. The aim of this project was to empower teachers in adult education in order to improve the functional numeracy of European adults.

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