According to Eurostat data, in 2016, 4.219 million young people were unemployed in the EU28 and the youth unemployment rate was 18.6%. Studies show that individuals’ soft skills have a fundamental importance in their subsequent employability. As a part of the soft skills, include entrepreneurship competence, considered as a key competence for growth, employment and personal fulfilment. Entrepreneurship and enterprising behaviour are important objectives for education and lifelong learning policies in the EU. Taking into account this importance, the final report of the expert group from the EC (2009), entrepreneurship is included in the national curricula for vocational education in a majority of European countries.
However, programmes and activities included by these figures differ greatly in intensity and effectiveness. Studies reveal the gaps address: entrepreneurship is not included in all parts of the VET system, teaching methods are ineffective, the practical element of entrepreneurship is missing, teachers are not fully competent, and entrepreneurship is not linked to specific training. The VET sectors in Lithuania, Portugal, Latvia and Turkey have no national curricula for Entrepreneurship Competence development and greatly need this.
Vilnius University as a partner of two years Erasmus+ project for entrepreneurship skills and competences “VESVET- Level 5 for Validation of Entrepreneurship Skills through Interactive Learning Sets in VET“ (VESVET) will consult all project partners on dissemination and quality issues while implementing the objectives of the project. Partners of the VESVET project are: companies IMOTEC (Lithuania) and BLINC (Germany); Vilnius University (Lithuania) and Nottingham Trent University (United Kingdom); four vocational schools from Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal and Turkey. The first Kick-off meeting of the VESVET project partners was on20-21 November 2018.
The main AIM of the project is to promote the development and validation of entrepreneurial competences among VET learners in practical situations, and foster entrepreneurship training competences in VET teachers/trainers/practice supervisors.
Project OBJECTIVES:
– to prepare a methodology for the evaluation of Entrepreneurship Competence development for VET learners based on the LEVEL 5 approach which will also be accessible online;
– to create an innovative game based training course to support VET trainers in the design of their own curricula with integrated entrepreneurship modules;
– to create an interactive video scripts based Trainer/Supervisor Handbook that explains the rationale behind the training course targeted at entrepreneurship.
During the project life, the following results will include:
– Entrepreneurship Competence Development and Assessment Methodology.
– An Interactive Assistance Tool – Trainer/Supervisor Handbook with embedded video scripts that explains the rationale behind the training course on entrepreneurship.
– A Set of Gamified Material for the training course to support VET trainers to train in Entrepreneurship Competences. The course will contain a series of gamified exercises, guidance material, educational tools and games for the implementation of entrepreneurial skills into already existing training curricula.
For more information about the project, follow the project via LinkedIn group.
Article prepared by Vilnius University representatives.
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Project is Funded by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.