About the Erasmus + project in english

Erasmus + KA 1  vocational training  2019-2022

The adult education centers taking part in our consortium are located in the cities: Alingsås, Borås, Essunga, Falkenberg, Falköping, Lysekil, Varberg, Lidköping, Uddevalla, Skövde, Sotenäs, Partille, Munkedal and Trollhättan/Vänersborg. The project starts 1 of September 2019 and ends 31 of August 2022.

Westum is a non-profit association consist 41 adult education/ learning centres in Region Halland and Region Västra Götaland, in the western part of Sweden. Westum’s vision is to enable a stronger and more competitive region through collaborations. Through various networks, collaborations and projects that are based on the members needs, we develop goals.

This project includes 14 of our members, adult educations centers, located in different municipalities in Westum. Westum’s area is not only large geographic, it´s also includes a huge number of different vocational educational programmes. In our consortium we have both vocational education at upper secondary level for adults but also a wide variety of different post upper secondary vocational programmes. Our members are of varying sizes, ranging from a few teachers, up to hundred employed teachers.

Westum enables participation for small municipalities that doesn´t have the necessary conditions for running an Erasmus + Project themself. The way we work as an regional consortium creates added value for all participats and helps us enable our EDP together. The consortium has also proved to be an important way for participants and organizations to become more active in internationalization.

Through its previous Erasmus + projects, Westum has built up a functioning working structure for this consortium, which we are happy to share with others who run Erasmus +. It is based on responsibility, roles, functions and structure that are important foundations for a well-functioning consortium.
The municipalities that participate in the consortium have all kinds of vocational education. The common denominators are the goals that we agreed to cooperate on in this project. The individual’s development is always in focus in student mobility. The goals we want to achieve is both on individual, organisational and regional level. All goals will ultimately benefit the students.
The application has been formed based on five common areas of development and these are the ones that penetrate all parts of the application.

In the consortium we have agreed on the following common development goals, our European development plan:
Goal 1 Digitalisation:
There is a lot happening in the digital world now a days, which affects the majority of professional areas and individuals. Several of our municipalities in the consortium are located in sparsely populated municipalities and distance education and other technical solutions promote development and increase the accessibility of education. In order to give our students the best opportunities, we need to be able to maintain good service and high quality in the courses.

Goal 2.1 Strengthened social skills and employability:
Our students require an awareness of different pedagogical methods from our staff and a close cooperation with the labour market to enable employability. In a financial boom like this, extra good support is required for those individuals who have not yet received a job and who are studying. Many students have language difficulties, motivational difficulties, but also other needs that require extra support. We also have YH-educations (post upper secondary vocational education) that are highly specialized in a particular professional field and which require a high level of professional knowledge from our students. Taking an international perspective and achieving a high level of professional knowledge is important for both employees and students.

Goal 2.2 Supervisor competence:
We want to develop the collaboration between the professional teacher, the traineeships tutor/ supervisor and the student in order to optimize the
learning of the student regarding knowledges, skills and competences. We want to know how others work and what is new in the area and develop common regulations and frames within the consortium.

Goal 3 Increase the attractiveness of the educational programmes which the labour market needs:
It is a dilemma that individuals ignore VET- education where there are great prospects for a job. By offering internships abroad, strengthening the student and working for increased internationalization, the education can attract more students.

Goal 4 SFI (Swedish for immigrants) and a quick path to a job:
Most of our participating municipalities are looking for better working methods to be able to quickly get immigrant into working life, but it goes too slowly. This includes the intership, validation and mixed study teoretical and language with practice and intership.

Goal 5 Europe needs more receiving organizations in Sweden and we want to develop in this area:
We want to start a tow way cooperation with more of our international contacts, but we need structure. We are quite new in this area, but after this project we have set rules and structure that makes it easier to recive participants.