WBL-PRO creates, pilots and mainstreams a new job profile for the WBL Professional in a transparency approach, i.e. through the application of EQF and ECVET, detailing the specific knowledge, skills and competences necessary to promote, guide, assist, facilitate and assess effective WBL experiences.
In a European job market characterised by high youth unemployment rate, VET with a strong WBL component is a mean to enhance the employment opportunities of youth. It is estimated that the demand for work based trainers and educators will continue to increase, and yet there is no qualification that brings together the range of skills that these professionals need. Many competent staff members are also being asked to support learning in the workplace, as tutors or trainers, but often they need to develop the necessary skills to do this effectively.
WBL-PRO aims to create innovative tools to support the development of this new professional profile. The EU WBL Professionals are endowed with an open source platform for training purposes offering:
– a sound understanding of theoretical perspectives which underpin WBL and of justifications for its place in the curriculum;
– a skills base which will allow them to deploy a range of learning and assessing methodologies when supporting students, assuring quality in WBL delivery and facilitating the recognition of learning outcomes;
– a content-based toolbox, meant as a repository of relevant best practices and tools collected from sharing and mutual learning activities among the countries involved.
These objectives have been achieved through the development of relevant Intellectual Outputs:
– WBL-PROFESSIONAL.EU a One Stop Virtual Space for WBL Services with open educational resources, where all the other Intellectual Outputs of the project will be uploaded and implemented
– WBL Pathways Research and Analysis Report
– WBL Professional Job Profiles
– WBL Professional Qualification Manual
– WBL-PRO Toolkit
– WBL Professionals Peer Network
– Top 12 Empower Talk Movies Panel
The project team includes 10 organizations from 6 European countries: Italy, Portugal, Germany, Bulgaria, Spain and Latvia. They used their expertise and the synergy between their professionalisms to achieve these outputs.
WBL Professionals will enhance the employability perspectives of young adults by:
– facilitating learning at work, linking learning, teaching and assessing in VET and CET and work based learning;
– assessing the learning of work-based students in a view of recognising learning outcomes and guaranteeing WBL programmes quality control.
Tutors, trainers, assessors and those who design, develop, facilitate, support, deliver and assess learning at work will be able to improve the quality and widen the scope of the services offered and thus improve their managerial skills and enhance their pro-activeness and sense of initiative. They will also see their expertise certified and recognised at European level, increasing their career perspectives.
The project team achieved these goals in compliance with the program priorities for innovating and increasing the quality and range of VET, including the production and adoption of OERs in diverse European languages.