EPALE Interview: UP NOW Project (Part 1)
The Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs of the Republic of Serbia is implementing the project “Upskilling Pathways: New opportunities for work-skills development for adults in Republic of Serbia” (UP NOW) as a coordinator and within the European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation - EaSI.
As one of the important EPALE thematic focuses is on basic skills learning provision, we spoke to Jelena Popović, a project coordinator at the National Employment Service, about its activities and results.
Due to its length, we divided the interview into two parts. You can read the first part of the interview below. You can find the second part of the interview here.
To begin with, tell us about the main goals of the UP NOW project. How is this project related to the EU Upskilling Pathways initiative?
The overall goal of the project is to create a solid basis to implement the Council Recommendation on Upskilling Pathways from 2016 in the Republic of Serbia. By doing so, we took into account existing legal framework in Serbia that was used as a base to identify opportunities and missing parts and to provide guidance to national adult education authorities, all in cooperation with relevant stakeholders.
The project promoted skills development and encouraged individuals to learn in order to improve their knowledge and remain competitive on the job market. The project also encouraged relevant stakeholders, those who directly control or influence the adult education sector, to invest in lifelong learning programmes across the country. The results will allow unqualified and low-qualified adults to have an easier access to flexible paths for improvement of their literacy, numeracy and digital skills.
The project is at the end. What were the main activities of the project?
The aim of the project was to help adults acquire basic, key skills and competencies, so they could enrol in further education and training, acquire qualifications, and have better work and life opportunities. In that sense, our key project activities were divided into different stages.
The first stage involved collecting data and gaining insights about the situation in order to define a starting point and start creating a sustainable plan for future activities. We also needed to identify the best method that would help us reach our target group and obtain reliable data. The research was conducted in cooperation with the IPSOS Research Agency. The target group (users) had the chance to self-assess their knowledge and skills and share their learning preferences.
The next stage involved assessing users that were a part of the research to determine the type and level of their existent and missing skills, knowledge and competencies. The assessment was carried out by the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation.
The third, crucial stage, that was implemented at the end of the project, involved designing and providing adequate, flexible and high-quality training sessions based on the results and recommendations obtained from previous stages. The training programme offered content that helped participants acquire a sufficient level of literacy, numeracy and digital competencies, a set of skills relevant for the job market. The skills obtained should provide possibilities for acquisition of relevant qualifications in the future. The training content was designed to reflect local, regional and national labour market needs.
The final project activity was the development of an Action Plan that presents our findings, the situation analysis, round table discussions, our experience and previous upskilling experiences. The Action Plan serves as a recommendation for policy and curriculum creators as it consists of activities that should be carried out in the next five years.
The topic of the UP NOW project is cross-sectoral and falls within the jurisdiction of various state authorities. Which institutions had their representatives participating in the project implementation and what were their tasks?
The consortium on this project consisted of the Ministry of Labour, Employment, Veteran and Social Affairs, as the project coordinator, then the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade and the National Employment Service, as partner institutions. The partnership included carefully selected public institutions that possess full capacity and knowledge to implement the activities on the subject. The project partners were also chosen so as to achieve balance - geographical balance, as we had partners active throughout the country, and activity balance, as our partners covered all aspects, from policy level to on-the-ground activities with low-qualified unemployed adults.
However, this partnership was not only valuable in regard to main consortium members and their long-term cooperation, but also due to their expertise and experiences acquired through the implementation of various projects relating to employment and labour market, knowledge and skills development, and adult education programmes and their development. We established a Work Group for the project that consisted also of the representatives from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, the Institute for Improvement of Education, the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and the Union of Employers, in addition to the consortium representatives.
The IPSOS Agency conducted secondary and primary research within the project. What were their main findings?
The research conducted by the IPSOS Research Agency included about 2,500 participants, low-qualified individuals chosen from the National Employment Service (NES) records, who had been unemployed for more than two years. It also included an analysis of the existing (secondary) data from the labour market.
The primary research, in addition to the existing situation analysis and obstacle mapping, included important data on self-assessment of participant’s literacy, numeracy and digital skills. It was found that the vast majority of low-qualified unemployed individuals under 45 from the NES records (over 90%) considered their elementary literacy and numeracy to be at a high level and claimed that they easily communicated with others and successfully used basic mathematical operations. Almost 8 out of 10 respondents from this group use social networks, and every other person uses the Internet to look for a job. On the other hand, those over 45 are more reserved towards technology and more modest in self-assessing their abilities.
In addition to the analysis of current demographic, macroeconomic and social trends, the secondary research also provided a structural overview of low-qualified unemployed individuals at the national and regional level, as well as an analysis of the implementation of Active employment policy measures designed for this target group. The analysis has shown that low-qualified individuals make up a significant share of the population in the records of the National Employment Service. When we add the job waiting period to that, we can conclude that every fifth person from the NES records has not finished high school and has been waiting for a job for more than two years. In that sense, additional training programmes and employment incentives play a significant role in assisting this unemployed group. Thus, it is necessary to design annual goals and ways to achieve them on the basis of previous programme effectiveness evaluation.
However, when designing the programmes, it is important to take into consideration the broader context in which these employment policies are implemented. In order to design the best possible employment policy, it is important to address certain aspects that will have an impact on labour market in the upcoming period. Despite good macroeconomic trends and a significant reduction in unemployment that allow more opportunities and new employment strategies for the mentioned unemployed groups, Serbia is facing serious challenges that can further aggravate the situation of the unemployed. These challenges include the change in the unemployment structure, i.e. more low-qualified unemployed individuals of different age groups and different waiting times, due to an increase in employment and informal employment. Finally, we should also take into consideration the pandemic and its consequences regarding the halted growth, as well as possible recession that is coming in the West and increased pressure on employment in Serbia due to expected layoffs in developed countries, particularly layoffs of low-qualified individuals and those working on low demand jobs.
This was the first part of the interview with Jelena Popović, UP NOW project coordinator at the National Employment Service.
The second part of the interview deals with new NES communication strategy for unemployed individuals, differences between participant self-assessment and objective testing results and other project activities.
