SMART & STEAM VET

PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT:

SMART & STEAM VET project is a KA2 Strategic Partnerships project on Innovation. It is a cross-sectoral project between VET and School Education. Its actions and outputs will focus on key target issues connected to VET attractiveness in the digital era, professional development and social inclusion in 5 European countries: Romania, Austria, Italy, Poland and Spain. The improvement focus will be regional and local but benefiting from a transnational dimension working on innovation of ICT tools via Gamification and training programmes for professionals involved in guidance activities for students and parents during transition periods in educational cycles. Serious gaming for guidance is the methodology chosen.

Our Strategic Partnership points to create a more systematic engagement of lower secondary and upper secondary schools, VET providers and companies and inspire sustainable policy reforms on education and employment with a focus on gender issues connected to S.T.E.A.M. subjects and technical culture in training and job market. In details activities will tackle the following issues related to E+2019 VET priorities:

– Continuous professional development of VET teachers, trainers and mentors with effective capacity building actions through two transnational joint staff trainings and five multiplying events at local level. Professional development will focus on digital skills, quality assurance, evaluation and monitoring processes of learning outcomes and impacts of guidance activities on learners, companies, VET providers and general education providers. – Open Education in a digital era connected to update of VET and school system to innovation and digitalization of learning processes.

– Early school leaving caused by a wrong choice at early age leading to social exclusion and low skilled jobs. A mix of complementary transnational partners, 3 VET providers, 1 research institute on VET, 1 gamification private company will work on a 26 months basis for creating 2 new digital IOs and deliver massive awareness raising campaigns exploiting two European Skills Week framework. We will drive positive and concrete messages to students, parents, external schools and policy makers. The motivation of partners to participate in the project is strongly connected to the observation of local needs and the acknowledgement about the necessity to try to cover the gap between skills’ qualifications and job market demand, especially in a far future with 4.0 revolution and IoT. We point at strengthening a SMART choice from early age, investing in innovation of guidance practices in VET providers and positively influencing parents mind-set especially connected to gender stereotypes on STEAM subjects and job profiles, indeed required by the job market.  The OVERALL OBJECTIVE of the project is to create a transferable Serious Learning Game and its training assets and webinars for the upgrade of professional competences of education and VET practitioners, teachers and mentors daily involved in guidance activities pointing on qualitative growth of high quality skills and competences. On the other hand we intend to investigate and develop new strategies for effective VET-business cooperation structures involving complementary stakeholders, mutually responsible for effective education and employment local and European policies for learners.

Addressed needs:

• Lack of attractiveness of VET as first choice during transition moments for students and families
• Lack of innovation in guidance tools owned by schools addressing students and families
• Lack of digitally skilled professionals in VET and education fields
• Skills mismatch in national markets and EU job market
• Lack of effective pairing strategies involving schools and companies
• Lack of quality and monitoring strategies owned by teachers for detecting effective guidance and pairing strategies
• Gender gap and stereotypes related to STEAM subjects, technical job profiles
• Lack of effective partnerships between education and business in creating effective guidance strategies
• Early school leaving due to wrong choice and leading to social exclusion and low skilled jobs

Direct Beneficiaries: Students aged 12-14 years old and their families, teachers and mentors from lower and upper secondary schools and VET schools.

Indirect beneficiaries: Companies, local bodies responsible for policy making processes, job market actors.

Expected number of overall beneficiaries involved: At least 2.500 with outreach activities.

Long term effects: 

• Smart policies connecting education to real job market and skills needs.
• Sustainable cooperation policies on education, employment, reduction of drop out and social exclusion
• Benefits to educational system for impacting on learners for life through innovation and its new positioning
• Structured cooperation strategies between VET-education-local policy makers-companies with smart guidance services for students and families during transition phases.

KEY WORDS:
Career Guidance, Placement, Employability, Gamification, Gender, STEAM, Early School leaving, skill mismatch, policy recommendations.

FIND OUT WHO YOU REALLY ARE

Youngsters play as a robot that has lost its memory and is trapped inside an abandoned factory. To get out of the factory and reach the world, the robot must solve different puzzles, regain its memory and discover its abilities and its true purpose.

The game is available in Italian, English, Polish, German Rumanian and Spanish.