Basic Skills within VET: online discussion
- Your experience of managing, teaching or designing VET with a focus on basic skills.
- How basic skills are addressed within VET in your country.
- Different models for the integration or embedding of basic skills.
Komentari
VET and basic skills in Lithuania
Hello, Dear collegues,
I‘m EPALE ambassador from Lithuania. I work in adult education centre, where we provide basic and non-formal education for adults. I don‘t work in VET field, but I can briefly share some ideas, concerning VET and Basic skills in Lithuania.
In almost all VET schools there is an opportunity to choose different kind of programmes: VET+basic/secondary education or just VET programme. So, the majority of young adults, who study in VET schools and do not have secondary education choose first variant. If the person already has the secondary education, it is possible to study just certain VET programme.
There are such cases, when young adults study in VET school and in adult education centre (or gymnasium) at the same time.
I totally agree with the opinion that Basic skills are esential factor in different kind of education and should go alongside with VET programmes.
Basic education and basic skills
Renforcement des compétences de base dans le monde du travail
Bonjour à toute la communauté EPALE !!
Heureuses de pouvoir partager avec vous les ressources et outils que l’Agence Nationale de Lutte Contre l'Illettrisme (ANLCI), avec tous ces partenaires, ont formalisé dans les territoires pour permettre à tous de maitriser les compétences de base.
Ces kits pratiques sont mis à disposition sur une plateforme de ressources en ligne : http://www.illettrisme-solutions.fr/
Toolkit for basic skills
National coordinators for European Agenda on AL
Thanks for this interesting information Graciela!
I am sure that is will be of interest to a number of the National coordinators for European Agenda on AL, who are working on developing the competences of staff to deliver basic skills to adults.
If some of you coordinators are reading out there, maybe you can tell us more about your planned activities.
I can imagine that the EBSN MOOCs will have great relevance for teachers and trainers in VET centres, who are providing courses to adults.
Cooperation for professional development
Yes, Martina, we will certainly need to cooperate both with the National Coordinators and with the Epale NSSs. We are eager to collect items that can be used as resources in the MOOCs, and we will also need to cooperate with the national EPALE teams to eventually get the MOOCs translated to other languages... Many plans and many tasks at short and longer term!
EU initiative - Upskilling Pathways
Hello everyone,
I would also like to react to Cäcilia by adding that Upskilling Pathways, the EU initiative related to the 2016 Skills Agenda is targeting exactly these people you speak of – the working- age population from 25 to 65 who have no or very low level formal qualifications. In 2016, there were as many as 63 million EU citizens in this category.
This recommendation very much underlines the need to 1) acquire basic skills to enable 2) progression to further learning to achieve a wider set of key competences and occupational competences, leading towards a qualification.
VET programmes are ideally suited to combining these two stages. However, I think all too often we find that VET programmes to not give adequate attention to whether or not trainees have basic skills needs and concentrate primarily on delivering occupational skills.
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1224&langId=en
Three steps to upskilling.............
Awareness raising and professional development
Thanks a lot for your contribution, Martina! Indeed, the target of the Upskilling Pathways initiative is quite clear and the three steps should ensure that adults in need of skills and/or qualifications can access adequate and motivating training. The challenge, as you point out, is that a considerable part of the training provision does not focus on basic skills. That is why the EBSN is planning and preparing a pool of resources (OERs) that will enable us to arrange targeted short MOOCs for different stakeholders from 2018 and onwards. There is need for awareness raising within the sector and a huge need for professional development in terms of didactic approach, tailoring of courses, adaptation to the work force, etc.
It would be very interesting to hear from other participants in this discussion if any of the countries participating in the Upskilling Pathways initiative is preparing or already has schemes for the training of trainers.
Raising awareness
THANK YOU, Sandrine!
From the DILABS web page
Improving the support and training of trainers/teachers, staff and organizations involved in adult education in the field of key competences, including functional literacy and digital skills, in an active process of developing European cooperation. It will be supported by research works from HEI and by practitioners’ point of view.
The project activities of DILABS will provide specific outcomes.
Raising awareness:
- Identification of illiteracy situations or lack of key competences, linked to the labour market, and/or social inclusion
- Realization of videos to identify relevant basic skills at work
- Production of tools kit, and methodological guides
Training of trainers of adults:
- Methodology to develop innovative and efficient training programs
- Digital skills to improve training programs
- Methodological guides
- Realization of videos to analyse educational practices
- Student and teacher’s book on the topic of functional literacy
- Training sessions and study visit in different european countries
Development and support of a learning community:
- Implementation of collaborative system in an evolutive and portable approach
- Improving collaborative work and skills of participants within the dilabs project
- Training sessions on-line for adults trainers, and teachers involved in adult education
Using video to facilitate analysis
Support of access for adults to VET in Switzerland
Dear Graciela and Helen
As you perhaps know we have a strong dual system in VET in Switzerland. Professional qualifications are valued and an important starting point for a career in a flexible educational system.
This is good news!
But: 14 percent of the Swiss working population from 25 to 65 have no formal qualification. Their employment opportunities are vanishing and requirements at the workplace are rising due to globalisation and digitalisation. The risk of unemployment is high, more than half of welfare recepients do not have a formal qualification.
The promotion of adults who want to achieve a formal qualification is currently high on the political agenda. There is a lot of discussion going on to improve the conditions for adults to catch up with their education to achieve a formal qualification.
Two major studies commissioned by the State Secretariat of Education, Research and Innovation SERI have been published investigating the role of companies and industrial and trade organisations. Another one investigated the situation of adults engaging in vocational education.
The studies (in German) may be retrieved here: https://www.sbfi.admin.ch/sbfi/de/home/bildung/berufsbildungssteuerung-…
Also SVEB did some rqualitative esearch on companies as chance givers for adults without formal education. The Chance Giver Study may be retrieved here (German also): https://alice.ch/fileadmin/Dokumente/Themen/Nachholbildung/SVEB_Studie_…
Findings show, that educational offers adapted to the needs of adults with considerable working experience are not yet in the place. These offers do not only need to consider the ways adults want to learn (didactics) but also working hours, consultancy services and personal accompanyment to make them succeed.
One of the main barriers for access to a formal qualification is the lack of basic skills. This has to be taken into account when developing educational offers adapted to the needs of adults.
Workplace basic skills training may also contribute to reduce barriers for access to vocational education. We have seen this in several companies where employees continued their education after a workplace oriented basic skills training. For more information please consider the following information: https://alice.ch/de/grundkompetenzen/go-am-arbeitsplatz/
Very recently the Swiss Federal Council adopted a national program for the promotion of basic skills at the workplace and is going to invest 13 Million Franks from 2018 - 2020. This is a big success and a challenge alike!
For more information on the Council initiative: https://www.sbfi.admin.ch/sbfi/de/home/bildung/weiterbildung/foerdersch…
Best regards from Zürich
Cäcilia
Common challenges inside and outside the EU...
... obviously! Thanks a lot for this, Cäcilia! Very interesting indeed to know what is happening in Switzerland in this field. I particularly like your observation that one of the main challenges is to find didactically sounds approaches to meet the needs of unqualified workers who nevertheless are highly skilled, but lack basic skills. This is something that the EBSN, as you know, is very conscious of: that low qualified doesn't mean low skilled. We do need to work together to develop better systems for this target group. Very happy that we can work with the SVEB within our network. We have all a lot to learn from each other!
NRDC Links
Yes of course. There is still a website with access to all the NRDC publications at nrdc.org.uk. The key report on embedding is this one: Casey, H. (2006) You wouldn’t expect a maths teacher to teach plastering…: embedding literacy, language and numeracy in post-16 vocational programmes: the impact on learning and achievement: November 2006. NRDC: London
Lovely title!
Thank you!
Your comment about the challenges of organizing this type of embedded learning is very interesting. I know that there are very interesting experiences from Norway on workplace learning. I'll find the link to a video which I think is relevant to our discussion.
that title...
Yes the title ("you wouldn't expect a maths teacher to teach plastering...") came from a quote from a very frustrated vocational trainer who was being asked to teach basic skills as well as using his vocational expertise. He felt poorly equipped to do this as he was not fully confident in his own skills and had had no additional training to teach literacy or numeracy. He felt that asking him to take on the extra responsibility for something he was not confident in was 'short-changing' his students. The full quote from the trainer talking to the researcher was something like: "you wouldn't expect a maths teacher to teach plastering, so why on earth are they expecting me to teach maths?"
Technical glitch: links
Helen, I see yu have tried to give us a direct link to the mentioned publication. The Epale system mentions "link is external" - and the link doesn't work. Have you linked it using the link button in the comment editor? If you have just copied and pasted, it doesn't work... Apologies on behalf of the Epale system...
NRDC research findings
It may be helpful for me to briefly summarise the research findings from the NRDC 2006 report. The research team explored almost 2000 learners on vocational training programmes, and looked at the way their basic skills needs were being met. The findings were quite striking: those that had the benefit of embedded or integrated approaches to their basic skills learning were more likely to complete their courses, and had better success rates with both their vocational qualifications and their literacy and numeracy assessments. (the headline figures are in the summary at the beginning of the report) However the report also showed that results were much less successful if a single teacher was asked to take responsibility for teaching basic skills as well as their vocational subject. It found that "learners benefit from being taught by teams of staff, each with their own different areas of expertise, working closely together". http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/22311/1/doc_3188.pdf
First question
Can you briefly describe your involvement with the issue of Basic Skills + VET?
Are you a national or regional policy maker? A researcher? A teacher? A teacher trainer? A training provider? A work place representative? A union representative? A resource developer?
We want to hear from you all. Tell us what your interests are and in which way you are involved in anything connected with our theme and/or the Upskilling Pathways initiative.
Good morning Graciela! I've
Good morning Graciela!
I've had a number of the roles you describe in your question. As a teacher I've seen first hand the shift in motivation when learners are able to develop their basic skills within their vocational context, rather than learning their basic skills separately in a disconnected way. Working with research colleagues at NRDC in London we explored the efficacy of embedding or integrating basic skills within vocational learning and were able to show how well it can work.
We know the value of enabling people to develop their basic skills in a vocational context but it can be quite tricky to organise and this is where I think many of the challenges are located. From a management perspective it can seem much simpler to organise the two kinds of learning separately. I'm really interested to hear from colleagues about ways in which they have acheived integrated learning or the challenges they met along the way!
NRDC links?
Thanks a lot for this, Helen! I know the NRDC, very unfortunately, no longer exists, but - would you be able to post links to any documentation about this issue from surviving web pages?
Good morning! Welcome to this online event!
We have great expectations for this online discussion, based on the relevance that the combination between basic skills and vocational training has within the European Commission's Upskilling Pathways initiative.
As you also know, we will be celebrating the European Vocational Skills Week next week, so this discussion can be seen as a preparation.
We hope you have read the questions and the blogs included in our landing page, and that you are full of ideas and comments.
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Basic skills embedded in VET
In the context of the investment priority: "Promoting equal access to lifelong learning" of the Operational Program of the European Social Fund (ESF), the program "Basic education with work experience" is realized in NRW with the specific objective "Improving basic education". This program offers measures to catch up on graduation or to acquire literacy and numeracy skills. The program is aimed especially at people with special needs and should introduce them to a better employability. The program has been evaluated and a publication of the results is expected in the first quarter of 2018. For now I would like to point out a few findings.
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In all courses included in the evaluation, the promotion
of basic skills was conceptually anchored. The basic competences are assigned a
central importance for the working life.
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It has proven to be important to give the educational
institutions a high degree of creative freedom in order to be able to implement
the courses in a participatory and process-oriented manner.
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The specific needs of the target group require work based basic
skills plus life-oriented basic skills.
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The target groups are reached with the ESF support program
Basic Education with Employment Experience and gives them career and employment
perspectives
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The basic education competences of the participants in the
courses Basic Education with Acquisition Experience will be further developed
and optimized
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The level of basic education competencies of the
participants has developed considerably during the course of the course.
To me, this clearly shows the importance of embedding basic skills - life and work based - into existing course concepts if one wishes to improve the job prospects of specific target groups.