AGORA VETPro 4.0: Advanced Guidance for Recognition of Opportunities and Attractiveness for VET Professionals 4.0

The AGORA VETPro 4.0 project team came together to create a space where VET professionals could convene, collaborate, and elevate the status of VET as a meaningful and esteemed career pathway. CE...

The AGORA VETPro 4.0 project has been a reality-driven innovative answer to a challenge most precisely highlighted byCEDEFOP in their Intervention Approaches for Improving VET image and attractiveness: “VET suffers from poor reputation. Additionally, the discourse on tertiary education still favours university education over post-secondary VET, which adds to its unattractiveness. VET needs to be an appealing, credible alternative option to general routes, if it is to attract and retain the right learners.” Additionally, the ET 2020 Working Group on VET pointed out the need of “new knowledge, skills and competences for teachers and trainers, from knowledge about the latest technologies and the skills associated with using them, to being open to and seeking out innovative solutions to new teaching and learning challenges both for young learners and adults.” Stemming from these 2 significant highlights, the project’s main objective has been: to address the identified training needs of its main target group the VET and HR professionals in order to ensure their competence-based motivation to work and promote attractive VET as a career pathway leading to enhanced employability and better professional realization of the young people.

The AGORA VETPro 4.0 project team carefully planned the activities during the project elaboration process and followed this plan throughout the project implementation. The approach implemented to arrange the most efficient and effective plan was the 3P Action Plan: Preparation, Production and Promotion. 1. Preparation These have been the launching activities the team undertook in order to prepare the road of the smooth and successful project journey towards the desired achievements: - project management in the framework of the Erasmus+ Program regulations and in accordance with the highest standards for due professional care, such as coordination, regular monitoring, evaluation and reporting, analysis and risk management - launching and finetuning all communication channels such as meetings online and face-to-face, ongoing communication, website, social media, etc. - establishment of two allies – AGORA VETPro 4.0 Circles of Support and Associated Partners 2. Production These have been the activities the team undertook in order to elaborate, pilot, amend and finalize the Project Results. Active involvement of all the actors have been achieved - the project team and the allies as well as representatives of all the direct and indirect beneficiaries. Production activities: - elaboration of the three draft AGORA VETPro Results: Competence Framework and Code of Conduct, Training Program, Talks and App with contribution of the allies - piloting in 2 phases – internal at the Learning Activity in Athens, Greece and external in all partners’ countries - based on the feedback gathered – finalization of the production process 3. Promotion These have been the activities the team undertook to achieve outstanding outreach of the Project Results and outcomes, to foster the project impact on all groups and levels preliminary foreseen, to provide solid basis for project’s sustainability. As a results of these activities the AGORA VETPro 4.0 professional community was created and maintained including the project partners, the Circles of Support, the Associated partners, the participants in the Learning Activity and the pilots and all the other professionals that became part of the virtual spaces of the project – the website, the Facebook page and other social media. The main sharing and promotion activities have been publications and participations in various events for the project target groups and the AGORA VETPro 4.0 Forums in all partner countries, including the Final Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria that have integrated into the European Year of Skills Map.

The AGORA VETPro 4.0 project had been ambitious and carefully developed project. The team committed its hard work and efforts in order to achieve the following Project Results and outcomes and their respective impact on the directly targeted professionals: - recognition of the role of the targeted professionals as well as validation of the complimentary knowledge, skills, autonomy and responsibilities they need to acquire in order to be ambassadors of an attractive VET system through the elaborated AGORA VETPro 4.0 Competence Profile and Code of Conduct (Project Result 01) - acquisition of a specific set of competences by the targeted professionals through the elaborated modular AGORA VETPro 4.0 (Project Result 02) with its three Training Modules: 01: AGORA VETPro 4.0 Partnerships Tool: 02: AGORA VETPro 4.0 Virtual Spaces and Videos 03: Practice AGORA VETPro 4.0 Theory Learning Digest The Training Program is allowing the practitioners to promote adequately the VET system, to ‘speak the language of the young people’ and meet them in the environment they are already feeling most comfortable in. – through online and video content elaboration and online communities launch and maintenance and through their enhanced ability to promote and make transparent the applicability of the theory into real practice and thus highlight the benefits of VET, including through the AGORA VETPro 4.0 Talks and App (Project Results 03) - establishment of the AGORA VETPro 4.0 professional community that will include the project partners, the Circles of Support, the Associated partners, the participants in the foreseen Learning Activity and the pilots, the AGORA VETPro 4.0 Forums promoting the project achievements and results in all partners’ countries as well as all the other professionals that will be attracted on the virtual spaces of the project - https://agora-vetpro.eu/ and https://www.facebook.com/AGORAVETPRo4.0 - European dimension of the project and cooperation between the organisations involved addressing common hot topics, providing relevant and adequate solutions on EU level in spirit of cooperation, respect and mutual support. The indirect target groups of the project included: - students/trainees and their parents who have been provided with a new or more evident perspective on the possibilities VET can bring them to enhance their employability and achieve better professional realization. Additionally, the success stories in the AGORA VETPro 4.0 Talks boosts the motivation of the young people in their career path plans considering VET as meaningful and bringing added value possibility. - society as a whole that benefits through the reinforced interaction between targeted professionals from the VET field, the business sector and the students/trainees. The results and impact are already going beyond the partners’ organizations and countries as planned due to the high degree of transferability of all the AGORA VETPro 4.0 Project Results to different countries, different type of organizations, even for different and specific final beneficiaries, their attractiveness and significant practicability. The Results are available in all partners’ languages and in English with free access through the project’s virtual spaces for at least 2 years after the completion of the funded period.