BEQUAL

The DG Education and Culture has announced the Lifelong Learning Programme call for proposals 2013. This year's strategic priorities are the same with the 2012 ones:

1. Develop strategies for lifelong learning and mobility
2. Encourage cooperation between the worlds of education, training and work
3. Support initial and continuous training of teachers, trainers and education and training institutions' managers
4. Promote the acquisition of key competences throughout  the education and training system
5. Promote social inclusion and gender equality in education and training, including the integration of migrants and Roma

The deadlines to keep in mind are:

This is the theme of the 2012 Global Youth Video Competition organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

So what is the big issue in education and skills today?

• Learning the right skills to get a job,
• Bridging the 'digital divide',
• Tackling inequality in access to education and training,
• Inspiring creativity and innovation,
• ... or something else?

Participants of 18 to 25 years old are invited to make a short video (no more than 3 minutes) on the theme of Education and Skills and submit it to OECD till 31 March 2012. The 3 winners will be announced on 16 April 2012 and will get as prize an all expenses-paid trip to Paris, France to attend the OECD Forum on 22-24 May 2012.

To learn more about the competition visit the 2012 Global Youth Video Competition website.

Erasmus for All is the new programme proposed by the European Commission for education, training, youth and sport. It is planned to start in 2014 and it is expected to significantly increase the funds allocated for the development of knowledge and skills.

Erasmus for All would bring together all the current EU and international schemes for education, training, youth and sport, replacing seven existing programmes with one: Lifelong Learning (Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci, Comenius and Grundtvig), Youth in Action, and five international cooperation programmes (Erasmus Mundus, Tempus, Alfa, Edulink and the programme for cooperation with industrialised countries). This will increase efficiency, make it easier to apply for grants, as well as reducing duplication and fragmentation.

The programme will support the following types of actions:

• Learning opportunities for individuals, both within the EU and beyond, including: study and training, traineeships, teaching and professional development and non-formal youth activities such as volunteering.
• Institutional cooperation between educational institutions, youth organisations, businesses, local and regional authorities and NGOs, to encourage the development and implementation of innovative practices in education, training and youth activities, and to promote employability, creativity and entrepreneurship.
• Support for policy reform in Member States and cooperation with non-EU countries, with a focus on strengthening the evidence-base for policy making and exchange of good practices.
• A loan guarantee scheme to help Master's degree students to finance their studies abroad and to acquire the skills needed for knowledge intensive jobs.
• The creation of 400 'knowledge alliances' and 'sector skills alliances'. Knowledge alliances are large-scale partnerships between higher education institutions and businesses to promote creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship by offering new learning opportunities and qualifications. Sector skills alliances are partnerships between education and training providers and businesses to promote employability by forming new sector-specific curricula and innovative forms of vocational teaching and training.

Up to 5 million people, almost twice as many as now, could get the chance to study or train abroad with a grant from Erasmus for All. Among them would be nearly 3 million higher education and vocational students. In general Erasmus for All is open to all learners and trainers, through any public or private body active in education, training, youth and sport. It will support formal and non-formal learning experiences and activities across all sectors.

For more information you can check Erasmus for All official website, the Press Release or Erasmus for All Leaflet.

The latest issue of the ECVET magazine (issue No.6 November 2011) is now available to the public.

The ECVET Magazine is published five times per year by the ECVET network.

The objectives of the ECVET Magazine are threefold:

- to inform about activities and initiatives to test and implement ECVET by Member States or by stakeholders in form of projects;
- to disseminate information about the of the ECVET pilot projects funded through the centralised actions of the Lifelong Learning Programme;
- to announce the activities of the ECVET Network.

All issues of the ECVET magazine are now available from BEQUAL portal through our ECVET documents section.

The BEQUAL Community of Practice is expanding. The BEQUAL project results will be transferred to Bulgaria, Italy and Turkey in the newly approved transfer of Innovation project BEQUAL+.

With BEQUAL+ project, the portal and the benchmarking tool will be made available in Bulgarian, Italian and Turkish, the Community will expand to include more VET institutions from the new countries, the benchmarking tool will gather more entries - benchmarks, the selection of good practices will be enriched. In parallel, we will continue to enrich the portal with articles, interviews and blog entries, so as to foster discussion on quality assurance issues and promote international cooperation and exchange of experience in quality assurance.

BEQUAL+ is led by the National Agency of Vocational Education and Training (NAVET) of Bulgaria. Partners are: Industry Watch Group from Bulgaria, IDEC from Greece, Development for Vocational Technical Education Centre (METGEM) of University of Bahcesehir in Turkey, Development Agency of Empoli (ASEV), Italy.

The kick-off meeting will take place in Sofia on 10-11 of November 2011.

The 2nd conference of the QALLL project (Quality Assurance in LifeLong Learning with a Focus on Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education) will take place on November 28th 2011, in Berlin, Germany. It is titled "Reaching mutual trust...Quality assurance that works" and it includes interactive working groups and sessions highlighting the latest trends in the quality assurance field.

The conference is addressed to education professionals and experts, project contractors of the European Lifelong Learning Programmes Leonardo da Vinci and Grundtvig, policy makers, national authorities, social partner representatives and other stakeholders interested in quality assurance in vocational education and training and adult education.

Check out the conference agenda and register online.

Eurypedia is an EU website that aims to present the most accurate picture of national education systems across Europe. It includes information about specific education systems as well as analysis of educational issues at European level. In total 38 school and university systems are presented in this European educational website, that was developed by Eurydice Network.

Eurypedia was launched on October 2011 and all its contents are expected to be finalised by December 2011.

This meeting is organised in the framework of the European Platform for Rehabilitation (EPR) Annual Conference 2011, that is being held in Athens, Greece, on 10 and 11 November 2011.

The Conference will highlight two main issues at stake for providers of services to persons with disabilities. On Day 1, participants will gain insight into the challenges of reintegrating youngsters. On Day 2, the Conference will explore the role of human resources in relation to the quality of rehabilitation services, and discuss how to optimise the use and management of staff.

The event "Outcome Measurement in Vocational Rehabilitation" will take place on 9 November 2011, during the afternoon session. This event is only open to EPR members.

The European Platform for Rehabilitation (EPR) is a network of European providers of rehabilitation services to people with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups.

The Lifelong Learning VETWORKS project transfers the SPEAK instrument in six countries (Austria, Germany, Greece, Poland, Spain and Hungary). SPEAK system is an innovative tool for strategic planning, evaluation and knowledge management for projects realised in the area of Vocational Education and Training. SPEAK provides a multi-stakeholder approach to national VET networks and advances their effectiveness and efficiency by using the European common quality assurance framework as a reference framework for implementation. In accordance with the Helsinki goals, the project will improve educational planning and training delivery within local, regional and sectoral VET networks in order to become a world quality reference and develop a common culture of quality improvement.

This Eurobarometer survey aims to record the opinion of European citizens on vocational education and training. It was carried out through interviews of 26,840 European citizens aged 15 and above from all EU Member States.

Main topics of analysis of the survey were the image of vocational education and training, people’s impression of VET’s potential benefits within the EU, the impact of VET on society and on the economy and the factors that influence young people as they choose between VET and other forms of education.

Key findings include:

• Positive image of vocational education and training linked to quality
• Strong employment prospects
• Need to improve mobility for training and work
• Economic and social impact, challenges for entrepreneurship and support to sustainable development
• Need for improvements in guidance services

The report has particular importance now as it will provide guidance to the work of the European Commission and Member States as they implement the VET strategy.

Read the full report.

A new generation of vocational schools is going to emerge next year in United Kingdom. In these schools businesses will have active role and will help shape the curriculum. This way the training provided by the schools will meet their requirement for skilled workers.

These schools are known as university technical colleges and some of the known companies that will sponsor them are BlackBerry, Toshiba, Boeing, Rolls Royce, Hewlet Packard and Cisco. The schools will attract students of 14 to 19 year olds and some of the focus topics to be taught are amongst others engineering and life sciences.

Read the full article at guardian.co.uk.

The 2011 edition of Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), enables countries to see themselves in the light of other countries’ performance. It provides a broad array of comparable indicators on education systems and represents the consensus of professional thinking on how to measure the current state of education internationally.

The indicators show who participates in education, how much is spent on it and how education systems operate. They also illustrate a wide range of educational outcomes, comparing, for example, student performance in key subjects and the impact of education on earnings and on adults’ chances of employment.

The European Training Foundation has recently published the ETF Yearbook 2011, which focuses on the role of social partners in the fields of vocational education and training, lifelong learning and active labour market policies.

The 120 pages yearbook is written by ETF staff and it concentrates on a broad thematic analysis of the role and function of social partnership in VET in partner countries. Through the analysis and reflections on the topics it is expected to facilitate policy learning in EU partner countries.

IDEC, a company committed to serve in practice lifelong learning, based in Piraeus Greece, organises the training course International Development Officer, registered in the Grundtvig database. The course will take place in Piraeus, Greece on 19-23 March 2012.

Training fees as well as travelling and subsistence expenses can be fully funded by Grundtvig programme in service training grants. Grants must be requested by the National Agency of your country by 16/09/2011.

In the attached files you can find more information and the registration form. If you are interested to participate, please fill in the registration form and return it to the contact details indicated in it.

The number of participants in each training course is 16 and applications will be treated in priority order.

• Registration form
• Training courses 2012

Lifelong learning is essential for everyone, for improving self confidence, quality of life, vocational skills and competencies. Lifelong learning programme presents unique opportunities to get funding and participate in European training courses, where apart from concrete learning outcomes, you will have the chance to meet people from various countries, share social and intercultural experiences and spend an enjoyable week in a foreign country.

The training fees and the travelling and subsistence expenses can be fully funded by Grundtvig programme in service training grants. For a list on the registered training courses you can visit the official Comenius - Grundtvig training database. Grants must be requested by the National Agency of your country.

The upcoming deadline for submitting an application for a grant to your National Agency is 16/9/2011.

If you are interested in participating in one of CEDEFOP's study visits, then you still have time to apply! The online application for the March - June 2012 study visits is open and will be open till 14 October 2011.

CEDEFOP study visits include presentations and on-site visits for groups of 10-15 persons and for 3-5 days to ministries, educational and training institutions, training sites, etc. The visits provide a forum for discussion, exchange and learning on themes of common interest and on European and national priorities.

Who can apply: directors of guidance centres, educational and vocational training inspectors, head teachers, teacher trainers, heads of departments, pedagogical or guidance advisers, representatives of education and training networks and association, trade union representatives etc.

How can you apply?

• Check if you are eligible to participate
• Contact your national agency for more information
• Consult the programme documents in CEDEFOP's study visits call for applications 2011/12 webpage
• Fill in your application online (around 45 minutes) and send the printed version to your national agency

The selection results will be communicated to applicants by January 2012 from the national agencies.

For more information on the planned study visits for 2011/2012 check out the official catalogue.

The DG Education and Culture has announced the Lifelong Learning Programme call for proposals 2012. This year's strategic priorities are:

1. Develop strategies for lifelong learning and mobility
2. Encourage cooperation between the worlds of education, training and work
3. Support initial and continuous training of teachers, trainers and education and training institutions' managers
4. Promote the acquisition of key competences throughout  the education and training system
5. Promote social inclusion and gender equality in education and training, including the integration of migrants and Roma

The deadlines to keep in mind are:

No more waiting for the applicants of the Key Activities Lifelong Learning call for proposals 2011. Results have been published today at EACEA website and cover all Key Activities thematics:

• Key Activity 1 - Studies & Comparative Research
• Key Activity 1 – Networks
• Key Activity 2 - Languages
• Key Activity 3 - ICT
• Key Activity 4 - Dissemination and Exploitation of Results

Have you applied for a funding under the 2011 Lifelong Learning call for proposals? Then waiting time is over, as EACEA published the selection results last week on its website. In the results page you can find the list of selected projects and reserve list for the following programmes:

• Comenius
• Erasmus
• Leonardo Da Vinci
• Grundtvig
• Jean Monnet

For those who have applied under the Key Action themes, they will have to be patient as the results are expected to be announced within August 2011.

Excellent comic strip from the xkcd team, demonstrating the current situation with the always increasing number of standards, in all fields of research and economy. It can easily be applied to quality standards in education! Have a look at it!