An innovation fair for the VET sector
The first LTTA event was held on 28-30 September 2021 in Lisbon. Ensinus hosted the event in Inete VET school and ISG university facilities.
PARTICIPANTS
23 participants gathered from 8 organisations plus one participant from C.M. SKOULIDI & SIA E.E. and one from Cometa attended online due to health reasons and because of social distance measures in force in Greece at the time.
Participants were selected internally to each partner’s organisation according to the relevance of their role played within the organisation. The event was attended by eight teachers, one officer of school life and education & citizenship policies department, five decision makers, four International relation officers and/or Erasmus+ coordinator, six IT specialist/digital pedagogy experts and one headmaster.
Additionally eight Keynote speakers from public and private sectors were invited to present good practices or provide insights in relation to TEL, Entrepreneurial learning, Tourism and automotive sector.
Morning working sessions were streamed online through the facebook page of EfVET which allowed more than 120 people to take part in it.
ACTIVITIES
Morning sessions were dedicated to the exchange of good practices, to expert or keynote speeches. Each day tackled a different dimension (Entrepreneurship, Social Inclusion and TEL) with specific insights about the Automotive and Tourism sectors (this choice was made following the suggestions of the evaluator to intensify the activities and because the event dedicated to automotive and mechatronic was not funded). In total 18 good practices were presented, 15 from partners and 3 from external organisations, plus five keynote speeches were delivered from relevant public authorities (presentations available here)
During the afternoon, several workshops were delivered with the aim to increase the competences of teaching, technical and managerial staff in Erasmus+ project design and in relation to the priorities and/or to the good practices presented. Some workshop activities were also aimed to brainstorm and explore possible collective actions for answering to common needs.
This was also an occasion to explore local initiatives. Three study visits were organised with the following purposes:
– Impact house, to show an example of a social business that reconcile and apply social inclusion practices together with sustainability principles in the tourism sector;
– Ergoux project, of the Faculty of Architecture of the Lisbon University to provide insights on the projects and studies carried out to enhance the gamification of learning through virtual reality;
– Associação Humanidades, to share an effective strategy for reducing the early school leaving and more generally to increase the social inclusion of teenage single mothers.
RESULTS
Evidence from evaluation and self assessment form shows that this event contributed to the achievement of the project objectives.
Results related to objective 1
“To Create more opportunities for VET organisations to exchange practices and discuss innovation on a regular basis”
The format of the one-stop-shop conference was generally well appreciated: over 76% of respondents rated “Excellent” or “very good” all the working sessions. Specific feedback was provided in order to improve the second edition that will take place in 2022.
Results related to objective 2.
“To improve the competences of the VET staff on innovative teaching methodologies and raise awareness on the most relevant themes on the agenda for the development of innovation in Europe”
- 76% of participants increased their networks especially for potential new partnerships,
- 86% improved their knowledge on Entrepreneurial learning strategies and initiatives;
- 81% of participants improved their knowledge on Social Inclusion strategies and initiatives;
- 81% of participants improved their knowledge on Technology enhance learning strategies and initiatives;
- 38% of participants acknowledged new opportunities and strategies for innovating VET Curricula.
Participants underlined how the event was useful for getting new ideas and how they were inspired to improve their own strategies by adapting the good practices presented. Actually, 86% of respondents declared that the good practices acknowledged are relevant for their context and the 62% consider integrating them within their organisation.
Results linked to objectives 3
“To improve the internationalisation strategies of VET providers, including fostering the internationalisation at home processes”
It is premature to assess the results achieved on this aspect but participants’ feedback about new networking opportunities given by the conference are promising, given the fact that 76% declared to have increased their networks.
Responses