For the last two months we have been working with VITALIS European Projects to help develop their already successful programmes built around Vocational Education and Training (VET).
Since 1997, VITALIS has hosted groups of youth and teachers from all over Europe through the Erasmus Programme and given them practical, project based learning experiences. As well as adding relevance and value to their theoretical knowledge, their projects grow the participants’ social competency and make them more employable in their home countries.
One of the objectives of the Erasmus Programme is the promotion of the values that underpin the European project, stated in Article 2 of the Treaty of the European Union: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.” These European values are also the values of internationalism and Article 2 acts as a mission statement for what lies behind what we do to meet the learning objectives we agree with each of VITALIS’ partners.
In many ways this is a uniting mission statement for all hosting organisations and participants engaging in the Erasmus Programme, and helping VITALIS to live into these values through their projects and courses is one of the focal points of our work. This is similar to the work that teachers, department heads and leadership teams do in international schools around the world to make sure that their school is living the international in their name. Just as you can teach physics (subject) in a school and in an international school, you can teach plumbers, electricians and car mechanics (people) in a VET Centre or in an international VET Centre.
The primary resource available to us is the diversity and the experience of the participants, so creating tasks and opportunities that draw on this experience, explore relevant political, economic and social issues and build new understanding is what we are doing. Sometimes this fits alongside the training curriculum, in the studio, lab or kitchen. Sometimes it requires more time, so a separate session is built around an idea or theme and is facilitator(s) led. Sometimes it requires an external speaker or a visit to provide something new, unfamiliar or provocative. These extra-curricular modules support growth in 21st Century competencies and soft skills, with a full package being possible to complete over a one month stay, or two weeks in consecutive years on site.
