Benchmarking for Quality Assurance in Apprenticeships and Work Based Learning
Erasmus+ KA2 – Strategic Partnership in VET | CERV-2021-DAPHNE
2018-I-LT01-KA202-046939
281.040,00 €
10/2018 - 10/2020 (24 months)
Lithuania, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Germany, Italy
Bequal.app
The value of apprenticeship and work-based learning for supporting youth employment and matching skills with labour market needs is unquestionable as also the New Skills Agenda for Europe (June 2016) and the 2017 European Commission’s Work Programme have emphasised.
Despite the broad consensus among stakeholders including social partners, the introduction of apprenticeship in countries with no such culture and experience faces challenges; the two most important ones are:
1. To engage more companies in apprenticeship, with a focus on SMEs that are the vast majority of employers in Europe and especially in small countries.
2. To assure the quality of apprenticeships, so as to avoid phenomena of exploitation, the substitution of employment with apprenticeship and ensure that the apprenticeships have an added value for both the employer and the apprentice.
Responding to these challenges, the general objective of the Bequal.app project is to promote and ensure the quality of apprenticeship and work-based learning.
Objectives of the project
1. To develop a quality assurance framework for apprenticeship and work-based learning addressing VET providers and companies.
2. To develop two self-assessment questionnaires for quality assurance in apprenticeship and work-based learning for VET providers and companies respectively.
3. To develop an online platform on quality assurance in apprenticeship and work-based learning with various resources, documents, links, articles, videos.
4. To develop two on-line benchmarking tools for quality assurance in apprenticeship and work-based learning, one addressed to VET providers and one addressed to companies.
5. To establish the Bequal.app badge for companies, engaged in apprenticeships and work-based learning and demonstrate good practices.
Expected Results
O1. Benchmarking methodology and tools
O2. Two online benchmarking tools
O3. Online platform
Activities
Online benchmarking tools
VET providers and companies will be invited to use the two online benchmarking tools, fill in the self-assessment questionnaires and contribute to the collection of the benchmarking data, a minimum of 20 responses for each tool, per country (except Germany, EVBB and UREG that act as dissemination and research partner respectively). The representatives of the organisations that will use the two
tools will have the support of the partners. The partners will provide any necessary support services, by means of seminars or mentoring that will guide the participants to register, fill in the benchmarking tools, get the report, explore the statistics and fill in the online evaluation.
Online platform
VET providers, companies, policymakers and other stakeholders will be invited to register and use the online platform for quality assurance in apprenticeship and work-based learning. Bequal.app badge contest Companies that provide apprenticeships and work-based learning will be invited to use the online benchmarking tool and submit their good practices. Partners will publish an open call for the submission of good practices, related to apprenticeships and work-based learning. The good practices will be submitted in a given template, following the instructions of the organisers. The evaluation of
the submissions will be based on a mixed system of quantitative evaluation, through the online benchmarking tool and a qualitative evaluation, through the submitted good practices. The winners will be awarded the Bequal.app badge. The award ceremony will take place at the Transnational Conference in Kaunas in September 2020.
Dissemination activities
Associated partners will provide support to the dissemination and exploitation activities. They will support the Facebook promotional campaign, they will participate in the Multiplier events and to other activities that the partners will organise.
Quality assurance and evaluation activities
The users of the online benchmarking tools and the visitors of the online platform will be asked to fill in the online evaluation questionnaire and provide feedback to partners. Participants in the multiplier events will be asked to fill in the questionnaires for the evaluation of the events.
Project Partners
- European Association of Institutes for Vocational Training (EVBB) – Lead Partner (Germany)
- Kaunas Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts (Lithuania)
- INSTITUTE OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (Slovenia)
- AGENCY FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING AND ADULT EDUCATION (Croatia)
- Croatian Chamber of Trades and Crafts (Croatia)
- Finance & Banking, Associazione per lo Sviluppo Organizzativo e delle Risorse Umane (Italy)
- IDEC (Greece)
- Universität Regensburg (Germany)
