Association of Colleges

                                                                           

      

 

New Approaches, New Skills for Social Inclusion

The Association of Colleges (AoC) have been successful in  an application for a European Union funding grant to deliver the ‘New Approaches, New Skills for Social Inclusion’ project. The project will form part of the European Union’s Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency’s (EACEA) Lifelong Learning Programme 2007 – 2013, which provides support for European Cooperation in Education and Training (ECET).

We’ll be working in partnership with MBO Raad, The Association of Colleges in The Netherlands to deliver this flagship project which will offer Colleges the chance to take a central role in delivering on key EU objectives whilst establishing strategic and sustainable EU links. To this end AoC and MBO Raad member Colleges will play a central role in supporting key EU strategic goals such as the agenda for ‘New Skills New Jobs’ and ‘Youth on the Move’.

The New Approaches, New Skills for Social Inclusion project will also offer an exciting opportunity for Colleges to work with Dutch and other European counterparts to understand and share differing approaches to Vocational Education and Training and its role in improving social mobility through Lifelong Learning. The project links together the key drivers of European development in social and educational policy into a single agenda to support those who are educationally disadvantaged within Europe, and aims to bring together like-minded organisations across nations that wish to address the agenda.

The key objectives include:

• To provide a vision of Lifelong Learning embedded into the priorities of the Europe 2020 Strategy, ET 2020 strategic framework as well as the ‘New Skills for New Jobs’ and ‘Youth on the Move’ initiatives;
• To raise awareness of differing approaches to VET and its role in improving social mobility in two European countries with complementary approaches to dealing with low skills and inclusion;
• To understand further how teaching and training pedagogies impact on the delivery of effective programmes to improve social mobility;
• To establish specific links between government departments, agencies and learning providers to encourage mutual understanding and future cooperation.

By the end of the project, we expect to have developed:

• A new framework for developing transnational cooperative projects focusing on social mobility
• Plans for a number of future European projects involving national partners in several European countries
• Much greater awareness in England and the Netherlands of the opportunities and benefits of working collaboratively across European nations
• Greater understanding of European policy and its role in supporting individual and national agendas to address skills development as a means to improve social mobility and inclusion

 

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