The EC announced three projects that they will fund under the pilot Vocational Education & Training (VET) mobility scheme for Enlargement Countries and Africa.
The European Commission (EC) has made available EUR 8.5 million outside Erasmus+ to implement a pilot Vocational Education & Training (VET) mobility scheme with an international dimension, that is, bringing together European and non-European partners. The scheme will fund two pilot projects of EU Member States with Africa and one with the Western Balkans:
- ‘Intervet’ (Internationalisation of VET systems in Western Balkans) aims to improve the culture of mobility of individual learners (students and staff) in the field of VET by better informing VET teachers and headmasters about resources and opportunities for this type of mobility. The project consortium is composed of 6 partners from the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) and 8 partners from EU Member States (Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Malta, Spain, Slovenia and Poland) (list of all partners). The project will receive EUR 2 million.
- ‘Overstep’ aims to improve key elements of VET systems, including teacher training, quality and effectiveness of curricula as well as knowledge of managerial staff, of three EU Member States (Italy, France and Spain) and 10 African countries (Benin, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia) by sharing best practices. The project was awarded EUR 2.5 million.
- ‘SAAM’ (Supporting Alliance for African Mobility) focuses on mobility of VET teachers. It aims at fostering new curricula, methodologies, technologies and management, as well as at supporting training, job-shadowing and knowledge acquisition on internationalisation, transparency tools and educational pathways. For this, eight EU Member States (Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain) will team with 13 African countries (Angola, Benin, Cabo Verde, Eritrea, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan and Tunisia). The EC will provide EUR 4 million.
The projects are expected to start their activities as of January 2020 and run for around 3.5 years. Only EU Member States were eligible to participate, not even other Erasmus+ participating countries. Originally, the EC planned to fund two projects (finally funding three) and had a total maximum EU budget of EUR 6.95 million earmarked (finally granting EUR 8.5 million).
The call for proposals, which was launched at the end of February 2019 with a final application deadline on 28 May, was a response to increasing demands for Erasmus+ VET exchanges with non-Erasmus+ countries. So far, the current Erasmus+ programme has supported exchanges between Erasmus+ and non-Erasmus+ countries in Higher Education and youth, but not in VET. The EC proposes to introduce international VET schemes under Erasmus+ post-2020, and the VET mobility scheme now pilots the international dimension in VET. The scheme is implemented outside Erasmus+ but orientates itself on Erasmus+ (e.g. for award criteria and financial provisions).
The two regions – Western Balkans and Africa – were selected for the pilot because they are priority regions of the EU and because both the 2018 Strategy for a credible enlargement perspective for the Western Balkans as well as the 2018 new Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investments and Jobs identify education and skills as an area for collaboration.