VET for Western Balkans

Summary

The strong partnership behind the VET for Western Balkans project consists of 11 partners: six partners from five different EU countries (Denmark, Spain, Slovenia, The Netherlands and Cyprus), four partners from four different Western Balkans countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Kosovo) and an international NGO.

The main objective of the VET for Western Balkan project is to initiate and support processes that will make the participating Western Balkan countries take important and secure steps on their way to an improvement and modernisation of the VET systems in their countries. All activities of the project carried out by the Balkan partners and the involved EU membership partners in cooperation, serve this purpose, directly or indirectly. The project aims to find constructive solutions to problems and challenges already identified, however also to uncover obstacles not yet recognised – _and to tackle them. Not only will the concrete initiatives in the project, but also the approaches and the methodologies that will be used, stimulate the efforts to be done to ensure a positive development in the VET systems. This includes involving all relevant stakeholders and decision makers in the processes to ensure future exploitation and sustainability of the results. When designing the project and composing the partnership, existing reports on research on the situation in the involved Balkan countries have been taken into account. Besides a communication has taken place between the EU partners and the four participating Balkan partners in order to ensure that the project meets their needs.

The aims of the V4WB is to strengthen cooperation among Western Balkan countries and EU member state countries, all the activities: mobilities, trainings, meetings, events, campaigns, establishment of joint task forces, curriculum development, new strategies, action plans, introduction of new VET programs, development of pedagogy and didactics, development of material etc., are planned and implemented in cooperation among the partners, who willingly will share their experiences and networks with each other.

The selection and composition of the EU partnership has been decided to fulfil the following criteria:

different pedagogical and didactic traditions and different ways and approaches to use mobility as a learning method.
a great diversity of VET education programs which ensures that the EU partnership matches the four Balkan partners and also offers VET training programs that can help to expand the Balkan partner schools’ supply profile and, in this context, training aimed at girls and women.

Expected general output 1:

– Exchange programs between VET providers from the Western Balkans and European VET providers

The broad EU partnership of large VET providers ensures that after the project period, the four Balkan partners will have comprehensive and perspective-rich exchange programs with the EU partners involved.

Anyway, our expectation of the VET for Western Balkan project that at the end of the project period, all the involved Balkan partners will have renewed their existing VET policies and strategies and have drafted and adopted a number of new policies, future aims, strategies and action plans to research their aims.

Coordinator

SOSU Østjylland (Denmark)

Partners

STANDO LTD (Cyprus)
Tradium (Denmark)
Stichting Landstede (The Netherlands)
Šolski center Kranj (Slovenia)
Centro de Formación de Administración y Hostelería, S. (Spain)
Alternative Pro (Albania)
High school of Metalworking crafts (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Secondary Vocational School of Electrical Engeneering “Vaso Aligrudic” Podgorica (Montenegro)
Upper secondary technical school “Shaban Spahija” (Kosovo)

Associated Partners