Project description
The EULEP project emerged from the need to establish a transnational cooperation platform that helps to foster vocational education and training (VET) excellence while addressing regional/national and EU priorities. EULEP aims to further develop and elaborate the subjects of artificial intelligence, virtual reality and social innovation as means to promote lifelong learning in enterprises.
At the heart of EULEP lies the implementation of the European Learning Experience Platform, which brings together 20 organisations from 8 countries, working together to make continuous VET more attractive for lifelong learning, and offer businesses new and tailor-made training modules that correspond to their skills needs in innovation-oriented subjects.
Project results
The project partners work together to set up centres of vocational excellence in their respective countries/regions.
The centres are to promote the usage of continuous vocational education and training (C-VET) to foster lifelong learning while helping companies innovate and remain competitive on the market.
With this in mind, the different project activities will contribute to:
- Making C-VET more appealing to young people & adult learners from different horizons and more relevant to companies/SMEs
- Delivering businesses with fully tailored-made training modules aligned with their needs and changing labour market trends
- Boosting knowledge triangles at regional and national level, bringing together businesses – VET providers – European Digital Innovation Hubs
- Embedding VET in regional economic development strategies, strengthening its governance, and leading it into a sustainable future
- Setting the basis for the development of transnational C-VET training modules, aligned with European VET quality standards
Centres of Vocational Excellence
Vocational Education and Training (VET) has been part of education systems across the European Union for a very long time and well before the birth of the EU itself.
Europe is in a transition phase towards a greener economy accompanied by digital transformations. Even if the covid-19 pandemic slowed down economic activity, the transition continues, leading to changes in industries and occupations, bringing about the need for new and different skills.
High quality VET is needed to prepare the workforce of the future, be it in initial VET or continuous VET.
In order to accompany the transition process at education level, the European Commission launched the “Centres of Vocational Excellence” initiative under Erasmus+.
The initiative on Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVEs) defines a bottom-up approach to excellence where institutions for vocational education and training (VET) are capable of rapidly adapting skills provision to evolving economic and social needs. It aims to foster transnational collaborative platforms, which would be difficult for isolated member states to establish in the absence of EU incentives, technical support, and mutual learning opportunities.
The concept of vocational excellence that is proposed is characterised by a learner-centred holistic approach in which Vocational Education and Training:
- Is an integrative part of skills ecosystems, contributing to regional development, innovation, inclusion, and smart specialisation strategies;
- Is part of knowledge triangles, working closely with other education and training sectors, the scientific community, and business;
- Enables learners to acquire vocational and key competences through high-quality provision that is underpinned by quality assurance, builds innovative forms of partnerships with the world of work, and is supported by the continuous professional development of teaching and training staff, innovative and inclusive pedagogies, mobility and internationalisation strategies.
