European Conference “Recognition of Learning in Volunteering”

It is a great pleasure to invite you to the European Conference on Recognition of Learning in Volunteering, which will be held on November 12, 2013 in Vienna, Austria.

Given the demographic trend and the increasing number of elderly people in Europe, it seems even more crucial to create opportunities for elderly to stay active. Involving a larger number of seniors in voluntary work might turn out to be a major tool in active ageing strategies.

The one day conference „Recognition of Learning in Volunteering“ will focus on the issue of developing and recognizing competences through volunteering. After the keynotes, workshops will be held in the afternoon, giving participants the possibility to test the RIVER methode – a framework for recognising informal learning outcomes of volunteering activities and for planning competence development in volunteering activities.

We invite you to join us at this European Conference on Learning in Volunteering.

When: November 12, 2013 (10am - 4pm)
Where: Dachsaal Urania, 1020 Vienna

To participate please write an Email to Maren Satke, m.satke@dieberater.com until November 4, 2013.

For more information on the conference contact:
Maren Satke
Project Management & Consulting
Phone: +43 1 532 45 45 - 1156
Email: m.satke@dieberater.com

Unemployment and social exclusion by young people in Europe

In a modern society, unemployment has a variety of negative aspects, in particular by young people.


The Big Bang project focuses on unemployed young people in conjunction with the social exclusion in Europe. It is addressing the problem of low ambition of young people and those who are participating in anti-social negative peer group behaviour, such as ‘gang’ culture and offending. Young people from marginalized groups are underrepresented in initial vocational education training and employment. The main objective is to find a holistic solution to this culture clash and to equip relevant professionals to more effectively assist young, marginalised people.

Long-time unemployment has negative effects, in particular for young people. In the recent OECD study regarding long-term unemployment it can have negative influence on “future income, skills, employability, job satisfaction, happiness and health levels” (June 2013).

When working with marginalised young people, it is very important to take into account skills, competences and knowledge and recognize the value of informal and non-formal learning. Informal learning is unstructured, unintentional and is connected to daily activities, without certification (family, work, leisure). Non-formal is intentional, structured and is usually provided by a training institution without certification. It is important that high quality personal is equipped with know-how to be able to support young people in relation to individual needs and support for job search activity.

More information about the project can be found here: http://bigbangllp.eu/

Which competences are needed to organise high quality European trainings for adult education staff?

Professional development of all staff in adult education is seen to be a decisive factor in the quality of adult education.

To define and prioritise the competences needed to organise a quality Grundtvig IST course the European project GINCO Tools & Training has launched a survey amongst Grundtvig in-service training course organisers. Participants were also asked to define their training needs. Based on the results of this survey, the priorities set by the Lifelong Learning Programme and based on the principles of the EU Commission study on ‘Key Competences for Adult Learning Professionals’ the GINCO T&T team defined 41 competences spread over 8 competence areas.

These competence areas are the following:

1. Application of innovative didactics and competence oriented approaches
2. Quality care and self-evaluation

3. Validation of learning outcomes

4. Promotion and marketing

5. Attention to EU dimension

6. ICT use

7. Providing social and professional support

8. Management and organisation

For each of these areas the GINCO T&T team has created a set of competences you can find here together with some exemplary activities related to each competence. At the moment the team creates a validation reference system and assessment tools for those competences that are most essential to organise a Grundtvig IST course of high quality.

The competences and the training needs will also form the basis of the training material and course modules that will be collected and/or created by the GINCO T&T team. In February 2014 a first pilot course for Grundtvig course organisers and trainers will be organised in Alden Biesen, Belgium.

GINCO is a European wide network for improving professional development of adult education staff. In the network we share expertise, create and share useful material and enhance communication and cooperation in order to improve the quality of in-service training courses and of Grundtvig IST courses for adult educators.

The network has been organising international conferences, webinars, training days etc. on quality aspects and validation of IST courses. GINCO also installed a Quality Award for Grundtvig courses. All this material is downloadable from the network website: www.ginconet.eu

• Visit the document library: http://www.ginconet.eu/content/document-library or
• Look at the GINCO Award video (7 min.): http://www.ginconet.eu/content/ginco-awards-2012
• You can find Grundtvig course organisers on the GINCO map: http://www.ginconet.eu/ginco-network
• You can register as a Grundtvig course organiser: http://www.ginconet.eu/user/register

The future of learning: Self assessment of knowledge in adult education

 

On July 1st we held a conference in Vienna to raise awareness for the importance of assessing informal and non-formal acquired competences, which is also the goal of our European project VINTAGE (online tool for self eValuatIoN of key competences in adulT AGE).

Our keynote speaker, Wolfgang Kellner shared his experience and examples in developing competence portfolios and how skills can be self-evaluatied.

 

The second  speaker, Erwin Bratengeyer discussed the development of an e-Learning label on the basis of self-evaluation. Mr. Bratengeyer presented the valuable insights he won while developing an e-learning label for the Danube-University.

The final presentation of the seminar was held by our Jaap van Lakerveld, our project partner from PLATO (NL), who shared valuable information on the current use of EU key competences in practice.

 

What is VINTAGE

Within the VINTAGE project we are developing a framework for the assessment of Key competences and an online tool for self assessment of key competences

VINTAGE is a European project funded through Grundtvig - Lifelong Learning Programme, which brings together partners from six European countries: Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Ireland, Austria.

 

 

Languages Behind Bars in Iceland!

The European Prison Education Association (EPEA) held its bi-annual conference in Hverogaði, Iceland, in connection with a training course ‘Better Out! How to prepare inmates for taking place in the labour market?’ from the 5th-9th of June. 

Delegates enjoyed presentations from key note speakers from all corners of the European community, discussing the importance of rehabilitation and education in prison, and the challenges of supporting ex-prisoners in finding – and keeping – a job.   We provided formal and informal presentations on the Languages Behind Bars project through workshops and informal networking throughout the conference and the training programme.

Cost-benefit analysis of prison education
A cost-benefit analysis of prison education in Iceland revealed a very interesting statistic – for every Icelandic Crown invested in providing education in prison, the economy benefited by 17 Crowns.  That is, greater economic productivity, along with increased taxation revenue from ex-prisoners fully integrated into the labour market, in addition to the reduced economic costs of re-offending and recidivism, and the social benefits of reduced victimisation and enhanced social cohesion outweigh by far the economic costs of providing education in prison.

Every reason to invest
Studies conducted across Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Iceland indicated another fascinating phenomenon in our understanding of prison education.  Helgi Gunnlaugsson, professor at the University of Iceland sought in his research to evaluate the common social perception that ‘prisons are too lenient’.  In fact, he found that given a series of ‘mock’ cases involving a range of serious offences, members of the public were more lenient in suggesting appropriate punishments than experienced judges and legal advisors. 

What this tells us is that there is absolutely no reason not to invest in education in prison.  It has a clear social and economic benefit, and true, informed public opinion tends to favour the rehabilitative agenda over the punitive one – despite what might be reported in the media.

die Berater® at the EPEA Conference
We were very proud to present our project Languages Behind Bars (www.lbb-project.eu) at the conference.  Language competences are a significant pre-requisite to successful labour market integration for ex-prisoners.  However, conducting a series of workshops at the conference, our LBB project coordinator, Paul Talbot went beyond looking at the role of education for prisoners, highlighting the role of enhanced training and education opportunities for prison staff.  The LBB project is working with both target groups, to enhance communication between foreign-national prison inmates and the staff who work with them.  Paul’s workshops engaged conference delegates in a detailed analysis of the problems that prison staff face in supporting ex-prisoners into the labour market, and helped delegates to identify a number of creative, innovative solutions to help them address the pressing training and educational needs of prison staff.  This led to an interesting project generation session, where delegates tried to match their ideas to current and previous European funding priorities.

We are now working on new ideas for projects to meet the Council of Europe recommendations in the new funding period, and will be excited to hear from others in the field of prison education who want to be part of this vision.