Abstract:

European Council has agreed that all States of European Union must support Apprenticeship and Internship as learning methods in their Vocational Education and Training System (VET). This policy base in the goal which connect the education and the development with the increasing economic competitiveness to improve the individual`s employability.

Part of this solution could be found in a high-quality VET system where the active participation of employees and the Work-Based Learning (WBL) methods simplify the transition of young people from the education and training structures to work.

The EDUWORK.NET project aims at building networks and partnerships of VET providers at European level, national or/and regional. To support this aim we made the following research in Italy, Spain, Greece, Lithuania, UK and Ireland. The main objectives of this research are to understand the differences of the national VET and Apprenticeship systems (especially during COVID-19 period), the best interconnection between learning outcomes and work placements and to understand what consist of an efficient WBL experience in addition to an inefficient. The main target groups of this project were the VET providers, the employers and companies, the policy makers, the experts and the practitioners in VET.

This research, took place between 2020-21, makes use of qualitative and quantitative research strategy to balance the use of all the information available and try to avoid any potential biases. For creating a coherent and complete context study we must consider both objective and subjective data. However, the two types of research will be clearly differentiated to have a coherent and concise conclusion for each topic we describe.

Partners countries carry out 4 interviews and 1 focus group each. Stakeholders interviewed were VET students (focus group of 10 students), SMEs and VET providers (interviews), to record the needs of the labour market and to work on real-life experiences. The aims of the focus groups were:
i) to define an ideal WBL scenario,
ii) to gain information on the different WBL experiences, pros and cons, things that were done badly, things that we done well,
iii) To gain information on the involvement of the student in his/her WBL experience (logistics, decision power, feedback, quality assurance, evaluations).

The aims of the interviews were:
i) To understand the ideal WBL scenario for VET providers and businesses,
ii) To gain information on the different WBL experiences, pros and cons, things that were done badly, things that were done well from the VET providers and Businesses,
iii) To gain information on the involvement of the organization in the WBL experience (logistics, decision power, feedback, quality assurance, evaluations).

For the analysis of the research, we did a causal-comparative research method, common for all the partners. This research method depends on the factor of comparison, which ideally concludes cause-effect relation that exists in each country and what differs between them.

Keywords:

Work Based Learning, Apprenticeship, Italy, Spain, Greece, Lithuania, United Kingdom, Ireland, Paneddiek, Vet.