Regional projects

Regional projects

The Towards regionally-based occupational standards – TO REGOS project was implemented by the ERI SEE Secretariat as the lead partner between March 2019 and August 2021. It was succeeded by the Enhancements in the quality of education and training in SEE – EQET SEE project that will be implemented between October 2021 and September 2024. More about both project is available on the project websites while project fiches and short descriptions are available here:

EQET SEE project fiche

  • Title: Enhancements in the quality of education and training in SEE – EQET SEE
  • Donor: Austrian Development Agency with funds from Austrian Development Cooperation
  • Budget: 2027399€ out of which ADA Contribution 1815000€ and 212399€ of the ERI SEE co-funding
  • Strategic partners: OeAD and EICI
  • Implementing partners: WB CIF and ETF
  • Duration: 01 October 2021 – 30 September 2024
  • Managing structure: 
  • Website: eqet.erisee.org/

EQET SEE short project description

The Enhancing Quality of Education and Training in SEE (EQET SEE) project addresses two topics : increasing the labour market relevance of VET provision (VET strand of the project) and enhancing quality assurance in pre-tertiary education – aspects of external evaluation of institutions (QA strand of the project).

Within the VET strand of the project, the EQET SEE consortium looks at developing regionally based, labour market oriented occupational (OS), qualifications standards (QS) and VET curricula incorporating work-based learning and assuring quality of VET provision through developing supporting measures and material (guidelines for work-based learning, trainings for teachers and company instructors and teaching and learning material). The baseline of the project will be the outputs of the TO REGOS project: A Methodology for the Development of Regionally Based Occupational Standards: defining guiding principles, steps and methods, Feasibility Study on Developing Regionally Based Standards of Qualifications and Methodology for the Developing Regionally-based Standards of Qualifications.

Three years of the project will result in the development of two regionally based occupational standards (OS), 12 national OSs based on based on regional OS, two regionally based qualification standards (QS), 12 national QS based on regional QS and 12 national curricula, nine trainings on the implementation of the new curricula, and over 60 trainers of trainers trained on new curricula at regional level.

Within the QA strand of the project, the EQET SEE works on supporting quality culture at school level, through the revision of QA (external evaluation) methodologies, accompanying instruments and tools, as well as supporting quality culture and internal developments within quality assurance agencies, through regional quality standards for external evaluators, procedures and trainings for quality agencies.

Foreseen project activities will result in strengthened collaboration between schools, QA agencies and other stakeholders, production of regional recommendations on methodology/instruments for external evaluation, in addition to developed regional competence standard for external evaluators, elaborated regional training modules for external evaluators and their delivery, and new guidelines for HR procedures of QA agencies. These new products and approaches will be piloted in a number of schools across the region.

The ERI SEE Study on The Aspects of External Evaluation in General Education: Focus on external evaluators’ initial and continuous trainings and monitoring in South Eastern Europe served as the baseline for the QA component of the EQET SEE project.

The QA component’s activities will directly involve quality assurance agencies in pre-tertiary education, ministries of education, methodology experts, education experts, training experts, external evaluators, a sample of schools, and a sample of teachers and principals.

TO REGOS project fiche

  • Title: Towards Regionally Based Occupational Standards
  • Donor: Austrian Development Agency with funds from Austrian Development Cooperation
  • Budget: 563816 € out of which ADA Contribution 459000 € and 104816 € of the ERI SEE co-funding
  • Local project partner: WB CIF
  • Consultative partners: KulturKontakt Austria (OeAD) and Austrian Chamber of Commerce
  • Duration: 01 October 2021 – 30 September 2024
  • Managing structure: 
  • Website: wba4wbl.com/to-regos-project/

TO REGOS short project description

The project plans to contribute to the enhancement of the employability and labour mobility of young people (aged 14 – 18) by investing in quality and labour market relevance of VET in the SEE region. One of the reasons for high unemployment rates is the inadequacy of the education systems to deliver for the needs of the labour market. In order to change this, it is crucial to have strong cooperation mechanisms between private and public sector in VET, and strong involvement of adequate business representatives in the definition of the skills needed on the labour market. This is stressed out by Austrian Development Cooperation regional cooperation strategy for the Danube Region/Western Balkans, with its two policy objectives being strengthening regional cooperation and supporting EU accession, in thematic areas focusing on employment, labour market-oriented and socially inclusive vocational education (and higher education, not tackled by this project). Apart from the thematic priority areas, the project also integrates the cross-cutting issues of gender equality, social inclusion and environment sustainability, prioritized by the cooperation strategy.

All this is tackled within this project. Regional cooperation, regional initiative and regional outputs form the foundation of this project, which thematically focuses on the standards of occupations to be developed in strong partnership between business and education, thus ensuring the definition of the labour market-relevant skills. In turn, standards of occupations make the core of standards of qualifications and consequently curricula taught at schools, which contributes to the learning outcomes being responsive to the needs of the labour market, and employability of young people.

The project also plans to enable the continuation of the process – translation of regionally-based standards of occupations into national standards of qualifications and their adoptions, following national procedures, which would ensure the sustainability and impact of the project results. The project would also go a step further and explore the grounds for development of regionally-based standards of qualifications, where the possibilities of a unified regionally-agreed template for standards of qualifications, and even more consistent regional structure, would be explored (as opposed to the process described in the previous paragraph, where each economy continues with standards of qualifications following their own national regulations). In this process of exploration, already running projects funded within the Erasmus+ programme on a similar subject will be consulted.

In more concrete terms, the project expects to result in enhanced cooperation between private and public sector in VET at regional and national level, Common Regional Framework for the development of regionally-based occupational standards, 5 regionally-based occupational standards, adoption of regionally-based standards of occupations on national level, translation of adopted standards of occupations into standards of qualifications at national level and adoption, and analysis of the feasibility of developing regionally-based standards of qualifications and action plan.

The project focuses on the following target groups:

  • VET centres from the region, currently in charge of the development of standards of occupations and qualifications at the national level and implementation of curricula, as implementing partners
  • Chambers of commerce from the region, presenting the liaison to the adequate representatives of the business sector from whom the input on skills is needed; also playing an important role in the implementation of the work-based learning in some economies, as implementing partners
  • Private sector organisations and companies from identified priority sectors, as implementing partners
  • Other target groups relevant at national levels for the modernization and adoption of standards of occupations and qualifications, such as:
    • Ministries of Education, in charge of the process of modernizing the standards at the policy level
    • Ministries of Labour, in some economies in charge of the standards of occupations
    • Employment services, providing input on the unemployment figures and market trends and needs
    • National Qualification Agencies, national Quality Assurance Agencies, in charge of the adoption/monitoring the implementation of the new standards, as local partners, involved in national consultations regarding the adoption, potential adaptation and implementation of regionally-based standards of occupations.

The economies included in this intervention include the Western Balkans 6: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Kosovo*, Montenegro, Serbia, and Moldova. Moldova is the member of the ERI SEE initiative and in this project participates as an observer in the regional events and conferences for capacity building purposes; however, it does not participate in the development of regionally-based standards of occupations.

 

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