EQET SEE - Enhancements in quality of education and training in SEE



Contract partner: ERI SEE - Education Reform Initiative of South Eastern Europe Secretariat Country: Europa, regional/länderübergreifend Funding amount: € 1.815.000,00 Project start: 01.10.2021 End: 30.09.2024

Short Description:

Overall goal


This project aims to contribute to the reduction of youth unemployment in South Eastern Europe by supporting the development of labour-market oriented, socially inclusive and high-quality education. The project will focus on increasing the labour market relevance of vocational education and training (VET) and enhancing quality assurance (QA) in pre-tertiary education.


Expected results


1. Improved national curricula that integrate work-based learning elements and are based on regionally agreed occupational and qualification standards.

2. Increased competences of teachers, mentors and company instructors for the implementation of national curricula integrating work-based learning elements

3. More effective, cost efficient and cooperative quality assurance processes supported by increased capacities of quality agencies and external evaluators

4. Enhanced quality culture at national level supported by higher level of evidence-based policy making and partnership relationships between the actors in the process of QA


Target group / Beneficiaries


The direct target group includes VET agencies, companies, occupational standards experts, business experts, education experts, training experts, school instructors, company instructors, school-company coordinators; and indirectly, schools, teachers and students who will participate in these curricula in the future.

The direct target groups for the QA component include QA agencies, ministries of education, methodology experts, education experts, training experts, external evaluators, a sample of schools, and a sample of teachers and principals. Indirect beneficiaries will be all schools in the region, and their staff – principals and teachers – who will participate in the quality assurance processes. The total number of beneficiaries of the project results is 11 985 (736 direct and 11 220 indirect beneficiaries).

The project will be implemented in cooperation with the local partners in all 6 Western Balkan countries, the European Training Foundation and the Western Balkans 6 Chamber Investment Forum (WB CIF), Austria's Agency for Education and Internationalisation (OeAD) and Standing International Conference of Inspectorates (SICI).


Activities


1. Development of regionally based, labour market oriented occupational, qualifications standards and VET curricula incorporating work-based learning.

2. Assuring quality of VET provisions through developing supporting measures and material (guidelines for work-based learning, trainings for teachers and company instructors and teaching and learning material).

3. Supporting external quality developments and quality culture through the revision of QA (external evaluation) methodologies, accompanying instruments and tools.

4. Supporting internal quality developments through regional quality standards, procedures and trainings for quality agencies themselves.


Context


One of the areas prioritized by the ERI SEE is VET and its modernization. To address this area, ERI SEE cooperates with the VET agencies and chambers of commerce in the region, gathered under the Western Balkans Alliance for Work-based Learning (WBA for WBL). This Project is a follow-up of the ADC-financed TO REGOS Project and is implemented in South Eastern Europe: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia.

project number 8259-00/2021
source of funding OEZA
sector Bildung
tied 0
modality Project-type interventions
marker Gender: 1, Democracy: 1, Inclusion: 1
  • Policy marker: are used to identify, assess and facilitate the monitoring of activities in support of policy objectives concerning gender equality, aid to environment, participatory development/good governance, trade development and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Activities targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions include the identification of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and desertification.
    • 1= policy is a significant objective of the activity
    • 2= policy is the principal objective of the activity
  • Donor/ source of funding: The ADA is not only implementing projects and programmes of the Austrian Development Cooperation , but also projects funded from other sources and donors such as
    • AKF - Foreign Disaster Fund of the Austrian federal government
    • BMLFUW - Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
    • EU - Funds of the European Commission
    • Others - various other donors are listed in ADA’s annual business report.
  • Type of Aid – Aid modalities: classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds such as budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds to CSOs and multilateral organisations, project-type interventions, experts and other technical assistance, scholarships and student costs in donor countries, debt relief, administrative costs and other in-donor expenditures.
  • Purpose/ sector code: classifies the specific area of the recipient’s economic or social structure, funded by a bilateral contribution.
  • Tied/Untied: Untied aid is defined as loans and grants whose proceeds are fully and freely available to finance procurement from all OECD countries and substantially all developing countries. Transactions are considered tied unless the donor has, at the time of the aid offer, clearly specified a range of countries eligible for procurement which meets the tests for “untied” aid.