"<< Background >>As part of the Europe 2020 strategy, almost all EU Member States have formulated national targets and indicators to reduce the rates of early school leavers. The project partners have already analysed and discussed their needs in various preliminary meetings. The participating vocational schools in particular lose many educationally disadvantaged pupils on the way to graduation. But the companies also complain that their trainees drop out of training. The Corona pandemic has exacerbated this phenomenon in all partner countries.According to the partner schools, the reasons for the dropouts are often absenteeism, poor grades, but also causes in the personal environment. The teachers often do not know how to react and support the students. The modular training aims to provide answers to this and thus meet the needs of the teaching staff of the individual partners.The needs of educationally disadvantaged young people are identified in advance and the ""end target group"" is thus included in the development. This ensures that the training content equips teachers with the skills that will actually benefit the young people.<< Objectives >>The reasons for learning disadvantages can be manifold. Usually there are several factors in the personal and social environment: poor housing conditions and thus a poor learning environment, poverty makes personal support by the parental home difficult, experiences with violence, drugs, debts, etc. block the possibilities of concentration. All of this leads to lower self-esteem, lower motivation and additional barriers to learning. Due to the usually multiple problems, individual support is necessary. Young people with socio-economic difficulties and learning disadvantages generally need strongly individualised learning support. In order to be able to support this target group better in the future, teachers need special methodological and didactic competences. Within the framework of the project, a digital ""modular further training to become a coach for integrative learning processes - iLEAP Coach"" will be developed for teachers and trainers, which will impart exactly these urgently needed competences.Furthermore, topics such as educational disadvantage, inclusion, digital tools, etc. will not only become more present locally, but also nationally and internationally through the dissemination activities, thus broadening awareness of the issues.If widely applied, this modular training can counteract rising school dropout rates.<< Implementation >>Within the framework of the project, different activities are carried out, both digitally and in presence.The digital project management meetings and the transnational partner meetings serve on the one hand to check the progress of the project and on the other hand to develop the individual modules of the digital modular training to become an iLEAP coach and to distribute the work packages among the partners.In the Training of Trainers activity, 2 master trainers per partner organisation are trained, who act as the main multipliers for the iLEAP Coach training.Different dissemination activities within the organisations serve to multiply the knowledge gained within the partner organisations. Through different marketing activities (e.g. information material, open day) and the country-specific multiplier events, educational staff and other interested stakeholders are to be sensitised to these topics and additional local support services are to be developed during the project.<< Results >>A variety of results are expected during the project. First and foremost, an empirical needs analysis will be carried out. The objective of this is to determine which individual problems the pupils and trainees of the participating partners have, how these affect the learning opportunities and existing competences and which competences the teachers and trainers should have in order to be able to strengthen them individually.Based on the findings of the analysis, the contents of the modular training to become an iLEAP coach (inclusive learning process coach) will be determined and developed in the framework of 4 modules.The 4 modules of a digital training for trainers and teachers to become an iLEAP coach include a method case for application in 5 languages (Romanian, Macedonian, German, English, Cypriot Greek) and are freely accessible online for the target group. In addition, 2 employees from each partner organisation are trained as master trainers. They then act as contact persons for further training within their own institution and their network."

"In the field of vocational education and training, the European Commission has recommended an increasing introduction of workplace-oriented learning. With this in mind, the Erasmus+ project ""Work-Based Learning in the Field of Mechatronics: Introducing VET Multipliers to Alternate Work-Based Learning in Romania and Macedonia"" introduced workplace-oriented components into vocational training for mechatronics at the Hunedoara, Timisoara (Romania) and Kavadarci (Macedonia) sites. The project had a duration of 36 months and started on 01.09.2015. The project partners were the Bildungswerk der Bayerischen Wirtschaft, the automotive companies Dräxlmaier, Continental and Contitech, the vocational schools in Hunedoara and Kavadarci as well as the school inspectorate Hunedoara.One focus of the project was the qualification of multipliers. To this end, both teachers and managers of the project partners were prepared for practical, labour market-oriented mechatronics by means of further training. Within the framework of the project, materials were also prepared for the design of instruction and the implementation of labour market-relevant learning progress controls. The documents were processed on the basis of the EC VET. By using European vocational training tools, the project contributed to cross-border transparency within mechatronics training and promoted a European training area.In addition, existing cooperation structures between the training actors were further strengthened and expanded within the framework of the project.Overall, the project supported an improvement in the practical and labour market relevance of mechatronics training in Hunedoara, Timisoara and Kavadarci. It is expected that the stronger orientation of the training towards the needs of the private sector, which was achieved within the framework of the project, will at the same time increase the employability of young training graduates and reduce the risk of youth unemployment."