LEOPlus
Objectives:
Project LEOPlus will engage strategic and operational stakeholders, from 4 Member States – Finland, Lithuania, Sweden and the UK – in identifying practical solutions to making the mobility in apprenticeships and IVET more attractive to companies and individual beneficiaries, more logistically user-friendly and better integrated with apprenticeship and IVET programmes and the associated qualifications frameworks.
The LEOPlus partnership will explore how significant improvements can be made in:
- Encouraging small to medium-sized companies (SMEs) to use transnational mobility for the personal and vocational development of apprentices and others undertaking IVET. This includes, simplifying the logistics of implementing transnational mobility for employers
- Ensuring that participants’ transnational mobility is properly supported. This includes simplifying the logistics of implementing transnational mobility for individuals and small groups.
- Providing assessment of transnational mobility that leads to recognised and relevant certification for participants.
Target groups
Initial targets will be: European / national policy makers and influencers who can implement recommendations into mainstream policy/ funding allocations; practitioners and Educational / Skills support agencies who can promote good practice. Eventual target groups are the apprentices / trainees themselves and the business community who will benefit from the implementation of strategic initiatives and good practice.
Approach:
Project LEOPlus will assemble a transnational partnership of stakeholders with both strategic and operational interests in each of the project’s 3 proposed objectives. Within the partnership, three thematic working groups, linked to LEOPlus’s objectives, will be established to consider the following issues:
- How can the advantages of transnational mobility be promoted to encourage higher levels of individual engagement?
- How can administrative and logistical structures be simplified to a level that is proportionate with the operational realities of employers supporting transnational mobility?
- What mechanisms are required to provide adequate guidance and support for individuals and small groups participating in transnational mobility?
- How can the use of existing national and European assessment and qualifications frameworks be better inserted into transnational mobility to improve the experience for participants?
- Can effective sustainable mobility partnerships be created to embed transnational mobility as a natural and standard component of apprenticeships and IVET?
Expected results:
LEOPlus will produce workable recommendations and prototype tools to support the achievement of the project’s overall aim and 3 specific objectives. These will take the form of:
- A LEOPlus website widely publicised to interested parties in 4 Member States of the partnership and relevant European policymakers/ influencers and practitioners. The website will be interactive for consultation purposes, will disseminate project activity and outcomes and will be maintained for at least 6 months after the end of the project funding period.
- A DVD containing the findings and recommendations from the thematic groups to address the key issues. This will be widely distributed to policymakers / practitioners in the 4 partnership countries and to appropriate bodies at a European level.
- Tools in the form of handbooks and effective practice guides, in 6 languages (EN, SE, FI, LT, DE & FR) that will be generated during the life of Project LEOPlus
Co-ordinating organisation:
Scottish Further Education Unit
Contact details:
Ms. Suzanne Ebel
Argyll Court, Castle Business Park, UK-FK9 4TY Stirling
Mail: suzanne.ebel@sfeu.scotlandscolleges.ac.uk
Website: www.sfeu.ac.uk/leoplus