<< Objectives >>Raise the level of digital and artistic competences as well as attitudes of openness, tolerance and civic responsibility; develop young people's European competences and skills in a professional and social direction; build the capacity of schools to create networks of cooperation at the local and international level.<< Implementation >>We intend to organize international meetings regarding project management and implementation, digital and artistic education; undertake a number of theatrical activities; in the field of education, teaching and learning, develop competences in the field of initiative and expression of young art; to develop and exhibit the theater of the subject in local environments; carry out dissemination activities of the project results.<< Results >>There will be an increase in awareness and attitudes towards communing with art in the target groups of the project and the social environment in the local and international dimension; the products of the project will be created; the level of competences and skills among young people will increase; 4 international meetings will be organized.

"The project is aimed to explore these good practices from Germany and Austria that could improve not just the youth inclusion on the labor market but also could help the clothing businesses to find high motivated and well prepared young workers. The main reason/background of this project is that there are good practices for dual education in old-EU member states. These dual education practices are connected as to the professional competencies of the youths as well as to the national frameworks in Secondary education, human resource management and economic growth. But neither of these good practices are applicable to the Bulgarian Education and Labor systems and they need to be modified to be more helpful for the economic, social and demographic reality in Bulgaria.Participants in the project are four organizations - SCIAT-Danube, Ruse, Vocational School of Clothing (PGO), Weis Consulting Association, Aschaffenburg, Germany, IHC Ltd., Achenkirch, Austria.SCIAT – has experience of Bulgarian business practice in clothing industry. Most of the members of the SCIAT cluster are business entities, so the SCIAT well-knows the needs of their members, especially labor force requirements. PGO – has 117 years of experience and tradition in vocational education in Clothing industry. The main priority of PGO is to respond to the aspirations of young people to successful professional start by providing innovative vocational education. IHC – has 20 years of tradition in Central and Eastern Europe. The IHC is working with the Austrian Development Agency ADA, Wien, together with international manufacturers of clothing in development projects to enhance the cooperation between schools, universities and the business. WCA – has 25 years of consultation in the textile and clothing industry worldwide. Thereby WCA have very familiar with the requirements for dual education in specific and education at textile and clothing school in general.The basic issues that the project is addressed could be summarized to: state analysis education excellence in dual education in Textile and clothing industry; gap analysis of the perspectives and challenges of the dual education in clothing industry in Bulgaria; identification of preliminary knowledge and skills that is needed for successful implementation of dual education. The basic intellectual outputs of this project are: Requirements for dual education during the professional VET in textile and clothing, Needs and expectations of business in professional vocational education in textile and clothing, Model of dual vocational education in Bulgaria.Following activities have been conducted: рrojekt management; four transnational project meetings, four learning, teaching and training activities: training VET teachers, training pupils, training business’ mentors, training different stakeholders, one multiplier event; dissemination activities.The participants of the project are:- 18 managers, teachers and administrative staff directly involved in the project and intellectual outputs;- 8 pupil participating in international exchanges of pupils;- 38 trained participants - business experts, VET teachers, stakeholders, pupils;- 142 participants in the multiplier event.Finally, the basic project’s impacts are:- modified teaching programs combining State educational requirements and Business Practice’s requirement in Textile and Clothing;- improved international business and social cooperation;- better recognition of dual education and its impact on pupils, labor force and business in Textile and Clothing.- establishment of business-training European cooperation;- promoting transparency, international mobility and business cooperation.The long-term benefit of the project is the start of the dual education in apparel industry at PGO ""Nedka Ivan Lazarova"" at the beginning of the current school year 2017/2018 on curricula developed within the framework of the project. Another long-term benefit is the start of a project for introduction of dual education in the apparel industry through the transfer of good practices from the project to a country outside the European Union - Albania."

Because mathematics is usually communicated in universally understood symbols it may appear that it does not require a lot of language to understand it but, in fact, its reasoning processes are very dependent on vocabulary and syntax. You may be able to write mathematics in symbols, but you need words and grammar to speak sums and equations, read about them and understand them when you hear them. When students do mathematics in a foreign language, the language itself adds a layer of difficulty to something that is already abstract and opaque. The result, as research shows, is that many secondary and tertiary level students, though they may be good at maths in their own languages, perform at below their level of ability when doing it in a foreign language. Conference attendees, academics and policy makers have asserted that the language of mathematics requires special attention and that there are very few resources available for teaching it.This was the background to the Mathspeak project. We set as our primary aim, the production of a language learning resource for secondary school students living in foreign European countries where they were not native speakers. Mathspeak would supplement foreign language learning by focussing exclusively on the language of mathematics. It would develop users’ receptive skills to the point that language problems ceased to obstruct their understanding of mathematics and enable them to verbally express mathematical concepts, appropriate to their age groups, put number problems into words and handle mathematical terminology with confidence. We put together a team which mixed educational practitioners with the creators of educational materials. The idea was that schools in various European countries would supply teachers and students to pilot the material whose feedback would influence the content and style of the course material.There is a well-known, though by no means universal, resistance to mathematics, especially amongst young people. So, in order to address this resistance, catch and maintain students’ interest in the language of mathematics, the writers took advantage of the current popularity of graphic novels and used comic strips to put over the teaching points. They took the form of light-hearted sketches peppered with fantasy and humour. The material was written one mathematical-themed unit at a time. Each unit was made available to the Mathspeak project partners through the AdminProject portal. The units were in three forms: 1. The finished English version comic strips, 2 A set of comic strips with no text (the blanks), 3. A document with text only for translation. When the translation was complete it would be transferred to the blanks by the IT experts at Danmar Computers. Partners were supplied with tests for the purpose of getting objective data about whether or not students were learning from the course. Most of the partners also used the original English version for the purposes of teaching English as a foreign language. They fed back assessments of the materials which informed further writing.Unfortunately, the Coronavirus pandemic intervened. In the middle of the project, schools closed. Though the Mathspeak project was temporarily suspended, our plans for piloting were seriously disrupted. Even when work restarted, our partner schools remained closed. Some partners were able to continue piloting in a limited way by incorporating Mathspeak into their online teaching. Other partners did not have this facility available. However, the writing and translating continued and the material was completed. 32 students participated in the piloting process, which was not an unsatisfactory number in the circumstancesAs schools have slowly returned to comparative normality, teachers have begun to use Mathspeak and, as we had hoped, news of it is spreading to other institutions. We are continuing to promote it and thereby bring it and the educational issues surrounding it to the notice of policy makers and syllabus designers.

"ContextThe European labor market is undoubtedly facing major changes. It is not certain that the skills and qualifications provided by the European education system are capable of meeting current and emerging needs, which means that there is a possibility of continuing imbalances and gaps in supply and demand for skills. The European Commission (EC) has launched the ""New Skills for New Jobs"" initiative to provide a general framework for the implementation of policy actions in the European Union (EU). Building on this initiative, the EC has highlighted the need to enhance the attractiveness of VET, for example through ""An Agenda for New Skills and Jobs: o European Contribution to Full Employment"" and ""A New Impetus for European Cooperation in education and training to support the Europe 2020 strategy ""(EC, 2010a; 2010b).Following the analysis of needs and shortcomings made by partners to prepare this proposal, the main problems identified were:- Practice traineeships in the EU continue to be underdeveloped. The situation varies greatly by country. Those enrolled in apprenticeship, strictly speaking, account for 33% of secondary VET students. 24 EU countries have programs where students spend more than 50% of their time at work, but the scope of the systems varies greatly.- Efforts are needed to invest in expanding apprenticeships and in internships in countries where opportunities for this type of learning remain very limited.- The permeability between IVET and CEFP is often an important challenge for individuals in pursuing their professional training.- Lack of experience at work, skills and professional skills is one of the factors contributing to the ""skills gap"" in the EU today. While 5.6 million young people in the EU suffer the consequences of unemployment, 36% of employers' reports refer to the fact that they are struggling to find new recruits with the skills they need. The project aimed at the homogeneous and systemic application of WBL principles at the level of the VET provider, the development of VET programs (both EIT and CEFP), guaranteeing transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications, increasing employment opportunities, lifelong learning behaviors and mobility for learning and work within the sector.PurposeThe project aimed at developing a European Training and Training Instrument to support the practical implementation of labor-based learning at all stages of education and training. Furthermore, the project supports the implementation of WBL quality assurance mechanisms in VET in the fashion sector, with a specific focus on feedback loops between iVET and cVET systems.Project objectives were as follows:- The qualitative increase in the VET offer, leading to more professional qualifications for the labor market and hence higher insertion capacity.- Greater professional collaboration between VET providers and businesses as part of the learning process.- Increasing the level of interest among businesses and VET providers, adopting learning methods based on work experience, as learning tools.-Developing a European-level technical education and a set of tools to support and apply on-the-job learning at all stages of textile education and training.PartnershipThe project brought together 9 partners from 4 European countries, forming a transnational cooperation partnership with a balanced geographical representation of the Erasmus area and a qualitative representation for Romania.The project partners were companies, VET providers, chambers of commerce, universities, schools, from Romania, Italy, Bulgaria and the Netherlands.The main activities of the project were: the development of the management and quality plan, the definition of bilateral cooperation agreements with partners, the organization of virtual partner meetings, the development of operational, administrative and financial management (including organization of partner meetings, project brochures and other dissemination materials, exploitation and sustainability strategy and IPR agreement.The results obtained within the project were:-Report on the Implementation of Learning and Quality Assurance in VET in the 4 partner countries in the fashion sector.- Set of tools to support WBL to implement concrete WBL (learning-based learning) programs in IVET.- Quality assurance guidelines and tools for WBL.- Learning program for IVET teachers and trainers (tutors, mentors, coaches) in WBL and Quality Assurance.Impact: supporting iVET programs to align quality initiatives with European sectoral education and training policies,help providers in this sector and local / regional / national authorities understand the level of change needed for VET providers and delivery to align WBL and QA with existing WBL and QA policies, promoting awareness-raising of work-based learning and quality among stakeholders in the sector, creating a space for cooperation and trust between iVET providers at national and European level."

In the context of demographic change and labour shortages that are challenging the European VET-organizations and their workforce, VET-organizations are at risk of losing their critical working and educational knowledge just at a time when the systems and economies need to develop greater expertise and provide high quality education. Terms of a VET-knowledge collapse describe the potential impact of the loss and deterioration of valuable skills, experience and know-how so important for high-quality VET-education. Research emphasizes the impact knowledge loss can have, that it is ‘the single most costly source of (knowledge) mismanagement in the corporate world’ and that not capturing knowledge before it walks out the door can result in costly and a detrimental set-backs rendering any attempts to increase efficiency in VET useless. However, before initiating and conducting DESK, no well established and easy to access tools to manage or retain knowledge existed for VET-institutions. The eight DESK consortium partners were carefully selected from 4 different countries and VET-systems. Additionally, not only vocational schools were incorporated but also universities and teacher-training organizations with well established contacts to local ministries to other VET-stakeholders. The coordinating partner, the Landesakademie Esslingen, has experience in managing international projects and organizes a variety of in-service teacher trainings. It is also responsible for human-resource development of educational, managerial staff and teachers with special tasks in vocational schools in Baden-Wuerttemberg. The two Bulgarian universities are internationally recognized research and teacher-training organizations. The vocational school partners from Germany, Austria, Slovenia and Bulgaria represented a great variety of different educational settings from technical colleges to clothing and design schools and with quite different organizational objectives. All school partners have had previous difficulties with knowledge loss due to leaving staff and are aware of the pending threat of the aging workforce. Regional teams were created in which the teacher training organizations contributed to methodological tasks and the vocational schools provided practical insights and testing opportunities. To increase the awareness of stakeholders in the VET-system and to provide support and guidelines DESK developed tools, evaluated measures and created best practice examples of knowledge management and retention in VET-organizations. The collected experiences and lessons learned have been summarized, structured and put in the framework of national partner guides and a Handbook for knowledge management and retention in VET. The results and experiences will support organizations to retain knowledge and to set up processes and activities to facilitate the active exchange of knowledge from those who are willing to share with those who are eager to apply. With the idea of more and more European VET-organisations actively engaging in knowledge management projects, more and more organizations start recognising and appreciating the value of the organizational memory and ‘know-how’ of their experienced employees. This will be one of the factors to initiate the cultural change needed to maintain long-term employability and continuity of the know-how of the aging workforce.Over the duration of the three year project the partners continually optimized their ideas and realized effects for students, teachers and for the partner organization. Considering the variety of project types and the highly diverse partners, educational contexts and starting points the effects were manifold and ranged from the change of the relationship between students and teachers and improved learning outcomes and learning conditions to new perspective on management opportunities that combine strategic development of the school with the risk and resource management of critical knowledge. All of the projects will be continued and local collaborations have been formed to disseminate the ideas and findings.Additionally, the DESK-partners have been able to start first initiatives of system-integrated knowledge-life-cycle-management processes that will hopefully not only guarantee the knowledge continuity of the VET-organizations but also the sustainable employability; it will also increase the loyalty of talented, motivated teachers with their industry credibility and teaching experience. The initial steps have been taken, but it will take time to convince the stakeholders in the VET-systems to initiate the necessary changes.