Discussion 15 januari 2018

Online discussion on project GOAL closing conference "Guidance and counseling for low educated adults: from practice to policy"

Marica Vukomanovic

This online discussion is dedicated to the closing conference of project GOAL (Guidance and Orientation for Adult Learners) Closing Conference "Guidance and counselling for low educated adults: from practice to policy" which will be held 17-18 January 2018, Egmont Palace, Brussels

The representative of Serbian EPALE National support service and the winners of the writing contest “Activities in Career Guidance and Counseling in Adult Education” will attend the conference and report live through this discussion. Serbian EPALE NSS invites all to follow and contribute with comments.

About the project:

Project GOAL is one of the projects under the Erasmus+ programme Key Action 3, prospective initiatives, European Policy Experimentation. GOAL stands for Guidance and Orientation for Adult Learners and is developing educational guidance services for low educated adults in 6 countries across Europe: Belgium (Flanders), Czech Republic, Iceland, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Slovenia. These educational guidance services will be organised as a policy experimentation in which evaluation of the process and the outcomes will play a crucial role. The project is coordinated by the Department of Education and Training, Flanders.

Programme:

Day 1, 17 January 2018

9.30-12.10 - Morning Sessions

9.30 - 9.40: Opening: Koen Pelleriaux, General Director, Department of Education and Training, Flemish Government
9.40 - 10.10: Keynote: Educational Opportunity for All: overcoming Inequality throughout the Life Course – Dirk Van Damme, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, Head of Division.
10.10 - 10.40: Keynote: Lifelong learning in European policy perspective – Dana Bachmann, Head of Unit Vocational Training, Apprenticeships and Adult Education; DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion of the European Commission.
11.10 - 11.40: Presentation: Participation of low educated adults to lifelong learning – Ellen Boeren, Institute for Education, Community and Society (IECS), University of Edinburgh
11.40 - 12.10: Presentation: Lifelong guidance for adult learners in European Perspective – Raimo Vuorinen, Ph.D. Adjunct associate professor, Lifelong Guidance Research team, Finnish Institute for Educational Research; former coordinator of the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELPGN)

13.10-16.40 - Afternoon Sessions

13.10 - 13.30: Introduction to project GOAL – Nadia Reynders, project coordinator GOAL, Department of Education and Training, Flemish Government
13.30 - 14.30: Presentation of the GOAL evaluation results – JD Carpentieri, evaluation coordinator GOAL, UCL Institute of Education, London.

15.00 - 15.45: Break out session I
15.55 - 16.40: Break out session II

Break-out sessions to choose from:
Policy Recommendations: this session concentrates on policy issues that have affected GOAL and are likely to affect similar future services as well as on the messages that derived from the GOAL experimentation for future policy development. We’ll focus on country specific examples.
A guidance service for low-educated adults: in this session we will highlight different
aspects of the GOAL service and its outcomes: users, guidance approaches, guidance tools, counsellor competences and quality of guidance. Models and good ractices from GOAL countries are presented to show how a GOAL service or similar future programmes should be (further) developed.
Partnerships & Networks: participants of this session learn how partnerships and collaboration with organisations were established or strengthened to reach out to the target group of low educated adults. Questions will be answered such as: which partners are relevant and why? How to establish and maintain networks? Why are well functioning networks critical to the success of GOAL?

Day 2, 18 January 2018

9.00-12.00 - Morning Sessions

9.00 - 9.20: Opening and report from the parallel sessions on day 1
9.20 - 10.00: Presentation: by John Holford, Robert Peers Professor of Adult Education, University of Nottingham and coordinator of the Horizon 2020 research project, ENLIVEN
10.00 - 10.10: Tesimonials from project GOAL
10.30 - 11.40 Panel Debate: "The role of adult guidance in increasing participation of low educated adults in lifelong learning"
- John Holford, Professor of Adult Education, University of Nottingham
- Martina Ni Cheallaigh, Senior Expert - Skills, VET and Adult Learning policies, European Commission
- Steinunn Björk Jónatansdóttir, MSS - Project GOAL guidance counsellor from Iceland
- Ema Perme, Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport
- JD Carpentieri, UCL Institute of Education, project GOAL evaluator

11.40 - 11.45 Video message by Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility

Labels

Entrepreneurship and employability

Outreach and guidance

Commentaar

Keynote presentation

For those who are interested, you may find out keynote presentation:

Educational opportunity for all: overcoming inequality throughout the life course by Dirk Van Damme OECD/EDU following this link.

Video Message in the end

At the end of the GOAL Conference via video message Ms. Thyssen

Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility concluded how important is adult education with words:Today, adult education is not a luxury but an obligation to all people..

GOAL closing remarks

Crutial message given through closing remarks by Dr. Jenny Litster: Guidance is changing! I think that we have to be aware of that!

Now, we have some ideas to share...running to the networking lunch!

#goalconference #evaluation

JD Carpentieri has just pointed out challenges of creating evaluation surveys for this occasion and for guidance services as well: How to make it short and simple? How to engage clients? How to ask questions taking care of clients feelings, perspective?

Take a look how they managed to answer those questions: https://adultguidance.eu/images/Reports/Chapter_3._Methodology.pdf

Thank you for sharing this

Thank you for sharing this document with us. Yes, planning evaluation is very important and another question regarding evaluation is how to use and interpret clients feedback via survey to improve future activities!

The experience and the

The experience and the conclusions from the conference inspire us, the practitioners, to put even greater efforts in the adult learning education and career guidance and in that way to contribute to the adult learning programme.

GOAL Day 2

Panel debate in progress and professor John Holford introduced an important question and something to think about: How to develop a policy which leads guidance forward?

#GOAL Day 2

The second day of the GOAL Conference began as equally interesting We had the opportunity to hear John Holford, Professor of Adult Education from University of Nottingham and coordinator of the Horizon 2020. Mr. Holford pointed out that is important that the benefits of adult education should be fairly shared. Also, he remarked that educational guidance calls for a strong degree of institutional stability.. We can agree that in our country we need to work more on this problem..

The final GOAL panel

The final discussion panel here at the conference just confirmed all the points and the importance and relevance of this project. Amongst other participants, Slovenia's best practices and efforts have been shared and greatly recognized. Ema Perme from the Slovenian Ministry of Education ponted out how regional cooperation and guidance is necessary and the need for more institutions to get involved is the next milestone we need to reach.

Regional cooperation

Previous work of Slovenia in field of adult education, especially in career guidance and counselling, can be a great example for us to upgrade our practical work and to take advantage of the opportunity for further regional cooperation..

GOAL Slovenia

It is also interesting how GOAL project was a great informational resource for them to see what is going on in Slovenia regarding guidance.

An important topic

This is an important topic. It is important to see models and good practices from different countries and to see how a GOAL service should be developed. I am looking forward to seeing the conclusions.

#goalconference #career.guidance

During parallel sessions, we had the opportunity to understand implemented counseling methods. We may conclude that relationship is the most important - show respect and support, encourage beneficiaries. As a career practitioner, it is relief to know that any counseling method we know is already useful. It gives space to give up questioning our knowledge and focus on building the relationship with our beneficiaries.

#goalconference #evaluation

Numerous videos are available at https://adultguidance.eu/methodology.

Here is the one that is showing us project from the client perspective:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/nVH7C2JfQCg?feature=youtu.be?wmode=transp…

GOALclients and counsellors

Great opportunity to understand the GOAL service through the prism of the users. This afternoon session is amazing because we can also learn from the examples of the real heroes - counsellors. They work with adults with such diverse needs, complex life situations, strong barriers, and we can see that they keep them motivated.

national context

How relevant is the national context when you talk about different counseling practices? Has this topic been analyzed in the discussion?

national context

That is the great question. National context is one of the underlying topics within all sessions. The most important messages are: it is important to understand the national context and to know very well all opportunities available to your beneficiaries.

A very interesting and

A very interesting and inspiring research that was done in the participating countries offers the possibility of sharing these ideas amongst other countries that are not participants in this projects.

The importance of sharing ideas

It is very important to share ideas and results of examples of good practice and in that sense it is also important to be up to date with the trends and developments in adult education. EPALE helps us reach bigger audience and relevant actors in the field.

The Final GOAL Conference

The Final GOAL Conference draws our intention to the complexity of the programme and its challenges in adult learning and education in the EU countries as well as to the overcoming the existing problems. Outstanding lectures point out to the necessity to support low educated adults programmes.

#goalconference #evaluation

Mr. JD Carapentieri has just presented to us key findings from evaluation report. Among many important findings, it illustrates what Mr. Raimo Vuorinen said: "Lifelong guidance is most effective where it recognizes the diversity of individuals and provides services relevant to their needs".

#goalresults

And more about country-specific results:

https://adultguidance.eu/

#report #inspiration

I am glad that individualization of lifelong guidance has been emphasized. Often when we talk about guidance, we are trying to diversify services and activities for different target groups, but we often forget how diverse one target group can be. Thank you for sharing these findings and inspirational thoughts.

Great way to learn about new initiatives and projects in Europe

This is a very useful way of learning about events and projects in other countries and also topics that are current in Europe. I work in prequalification of adults and it would be useful for me to hear about motivation of low-educated adults and how to guide them through the process and avoid discouragement. Thank you all!

#elpgn

Mr. Raimo Vuorinen reminded us to valuable publications of the Europen Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELPGN). Among other languages, they are available on Serbian:http://euroguidance.rs/aktivnostieg/publikacije-baze-i-resursi

Have you already read some of them? Any recommendations for those who start to read them?

GOAL conference

A really inspiring conference! After great speeches given by Dirk Van Damme and Dana Bachman, I would choose two impotant messages: do not forget the great role of education in overcoming inequality and do not forget the importance of partnership. We also had the opportunity to hear two great presentations from Ellen Boeren and Raimo Vuorinen. Afternoon sessions are also promising! Looking forward!

#GOALconf

I agree! Also, I would add one more important message that career management skills need to be introduced as a key competence in EU framework or as key competence for lifelong learning.

One of the speakers reminded us of the importance of career guidance for the purpose of return in labour market. Looking forward!

Thank you for sharing these important messages

Introducing CMS to educational policy documents such as EU framework of key competencies is very important because this would support its implementation on the ground level. Development of students' CMS is sometimes very well supported in education by teachers, but this kind of good practices are not recognized enough. Conferences like this are very important because they remind us about important goals and outcomes of career guidance. Thank you for sharing your impressions about it!

#goalconference

Mr. Dirk Van Damme from OECD Directorate for Education and Skills, Head of Division presented research publication:

Educational Opportunity for All: Overcoming Inequality throughout the Life Course. Some of the recommendations are:

removing the barriers to access early childhood education, supporting the family and community-based interventions, identifying low performers early on and provide targeted support - individual support to vulnerable groups.

What do you think about this recommendations? Is it important for your country and\or working role, clients?

Interesting points

The recommendations that you highlighted seem relevant in any context. Especially identifying low performers early on, which can predict and prevent the drop-outs and provide motivation and encouragement to low performers and vulnerable groups.

That is great observation.

That is great observation. Additionally, there is the positive correlation between education and resilience. It remains to be explored whether resilient people look for educational opportunities or they develop resilience through education.

important discussion

These seem to be very important and comprehensive discussions! Thanks for sharing with all of us who are not there right now. Looking forward to further updates and possibly some conclusions to the questions raised.

#Live

GOAL Conference in Brussels is in progress! After the presentations of Ms. Boeren and Mr. Vuorinen about Participation of low educated adults to LLL and European Perspective of lifelong guidance we have the opportunity to hear more about GOAL project. We're looking forward to further participation in the Conference.

Project GOAL Closing Conference

#Live

An amazing experience here at the Conference in Brussels. After the Keynote presentations of Mr. Dirk Van Damme and Ms. Dana Bachmann, we have gained a valuable insight into the pioneer beginnings of this comprehensive project. The challenges are ahead of us but the milestone has been set up.

Thank you for sharing

Thank you for sharing with those who are not present at the conference. I am looking forward to hear more of your impressions.

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Online discussion on project GOAL closing conference "Guidance and counseling for low educated adults: from practice to policy"

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