Rationale

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We find that a substantial amount of students who leave secondary education do not pass on to higher education, in spite of their having the inherent capacity to do so. Of those who do manage to move on to tertiary education, yet another part does so motivated by unrealistic expectations.

Annually, hundreds of talented young Flemish people drop out of the educational system, before having acquired any type of diploma and definitely before obtaining a reasonable starting position on the labour market, which following the enlargement of the European Union and the unification of the educational landscape is becoming increasingly competitive.

Many competent youngsters who do find their way to higher education drop out somewhere along the line towards graduation.

Extensive social-scientific research shows us various ways to tackle the problems related to lack of direction in education, lack of drive towards higher education and early drop-out in higher education and to develop structural and lasting solutions.

Such students more often than not belong to working classes and/or allochtonous populations and/or have preparatory schooling of a lower level than the so-called norm students (in casu professional secondary education versus technical versus general secondary education). Another ‘diverging’ category of students is the one who wants to re-enter regular schooling, having gained a wide range of skills and competences in a professional setting, but failing to produce the required qualifying documents.

It will be clear that if we want to root out the problem and systematically reduce the selective character of our educational systems, we will need to expand our horizons and transcend the institutional level. Indeed, we will have to establish high performing networks with all stake holders of education, in which each of the members takes up its part of the responsibility in the process and holds itself accountable for the results. We need to work on the entrance level, transit level and exit level.

Opportunities

A recent Flemish decree opens new perspectives towards flexibilization and customizing higher education.

In spite of legal restrictions on thorough reforms in higher education to reduce the collective character of its programmes and supportive services, most of the colleges have proactively experimented with ways to somehow acknowledge individual differences in educational and experiential backgrounds of students. Examples are: the reform of curricula focusing on competencies (entrance level, transit level and exit level) rather than course contents, the introduction of assessment centers to valorize competencies and qualifications acquired outside of the educational setting.

The new decree which enters into force in the academic year 2005-2006 largely removes obstacles keeping institutions for higher education from taking their experiments one step further (mainstreaming their student based approach) and one level higher (transcending the institutional level by cooperating with all actors in the field).

Recent commitment of the higher education sector to address the issues of equal opportunities on all levels and in all operations of their organisations.

In May 2004 the Council of Flemish Universities and Colleges signed a memorandum of understanding. Along with social partners and a multitude of relevant interest groups, they have committed themselves to take into account the diversity of their student population, the professional field and society as such in all of their activities: design and development of study programmes, assessment of students (and their credentials) upon entrance or departure, providing supportive services, teaching, counselling and coaching, research and community and scientific services.

This project addresses each of the identified areas.

Objective

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Based on a screening that focuses on improving our own educational context (action 1) we aim to:
·reduce gradually the selective nature of available courses and teaching methods so as to avoid problems of limited intake of students and avoidable drop-outs through creating an achievement-oriented regional network, a tailored school policy as well as creating an alternative learning route with an adapted learner environment – together with all parties involved
·prepare teachers of foreign origin to possible bias displayed at work in order to optimise their performance on the work floor
·recognise people of foreign descent as a separate target group for recruitment in education enabling new talent to be added to existing staff
·sensitise the labour market and schools to the aforementioned problems, map out recruitment and integration problems as well as provide assistance to formulate an integration and target group policy

ACTION 1: Improvement-oriented screening of own educational context
Based on the screening results we would like to create an educational context for a pilot group, having reduced identified stumbling blocks to a minimum and having exploited stimulating effects to a maximum. On top of that, consultation and agreements with “provider”, “consumer” and organisations which promote the interests of high-risk groups are presupposed. Actions 2 and 3 revolve around the following sub targets:

SUB TARGET 1: ADAPTED POLICY
·On the level of the Institute of Higher Education mission statement on equal opportunities applicable to the whole institute of higher education and disseminated by the local/regional network
·Development of a holistic approach to take in students of foreign descent as well as teaching staff that adheres to a regional approach policy, mainstreaming, full service, and monitoring progress and results (an intake policy that takes down barriers and increases performance on the work floor – cf. sub target 7)
·As part of a target group policy to limit drop-outs: formulate an alumni policy that includes a “follow-up system” for students of foreign descent who have just started their careers.
·Intercultural human resources policy: stress human resources policy, sensitise disadvantaged groups

SUB TARGET 2: SENSITISING TEACHING STAFF AND COACHES
·Support of leading school staff to learn to coach multicultural teams / deal with diversity
·Training of own staff


SUB TARGET 3: MAPPING OUT AN ALTERNATIVE LEARNING ROUTE
An alternative learning route (4 years instead of 3) will be created for the Bachelor of Nursery Teaching; the alternative learning route will focus on the high-risk group's idiosyncrasies, i.e.
·Advisory assessment (Recognition of Prior Learning Competences) to advise students to follow a learning route of three or four years.
·Tailored curriculum: In the first year education will focus on developing specific skills (i.e. expressive, linguistical, musical as well as study skills) From the second year onwards education revolves around acquiring and applying theoretical insights.
·Adapted educational support and student guidance that pays attention to mentoring, tutoring, and counselling of students of foreign decent (language coaching; follow-up of students; sessions on acquiring study skills; organising study groups and preparing students to exams; dual learning; learning on the job).
·Mapping out and tackling problems with internships, combating drop-out rates through introducing a student follow-up system; a mentoring system; and internship covenants which all have one thing in common: putting the student at the centre stage on different levels (education, school where the internship is done, students)

SUB TARGET 4: TESTING OUT AN ALTERNATIVE LEARNING ROUTE
·Because the available courses ideally relate to the whole bachelor programme, the effectiveness of a number of measures (e.g. graduation policy) will be measurable only to a limited extent (e.g. only high-risk groups that have already completed part of their learning route at the start of the project). Different parts for different target groups will be tried out.

SUB TARGET 5: EVALUATING AND ADJUSTING THE LEARNING ROUTE
·Based on the findings of all actors involved (designers, developers, students, home front, teaching staff, coaches, the labour market (i.e.: own staff, secondary schools as providers, nursery schools as consumers, student counselling centres as well as interest groups as intermediary organisations) we would like to improve the products developed and, at the same time, offer advice so as to extend the "pilot supply" in the current or an adjusted form to other contexts.

SUB TARGET 6: BUILDING A NETWORK
·Develop a supportive network that will provide assistance to students/starters and beginning teachers in the most difficult periods of their studies/careers, organising informative meetings, consultations, staff training, …
·Testing different models (outreach programmes & community approach)
·Evaluation of the added value of the network for the functioning of the school of higher education

SUB TARGET 7: GUIDANCE TO THE LABOUR MARKET
·Facilitating access to the labour market for the pilot group using the school’s networks, mapping out problems, and help schools with target group policies and sensitisation.
·Possible integration of training courses for teachers and headmasters/school management as well as integration into the BA of teaching curricula at EHSAL.

SUB TARGET 8: DISSEMINATION
·First of all, dissemination to other professional bachelor courses within the institute of higher education, then to academic bachelor and master courses.
·Manual of good examples made available at fora, workshops, the internet, etc.

Innovation

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In het project zullen werkgroepen gevormd worden rond een aantal thema’s: alternatief leertraject, krachtige leeromgeving, sensibiliseren van personeel, performant netwerk en beleidsbepaling. Via de regelmatige bijeenkomsten worden ervaringen uitgewisseld, actieplannen opgesteld, … om tot een succesvol eindproduct te komen. Ook de verschillende stuurgroepleden en de transnationale partners beschikken over de nodige expertise om hun inbreng te doen op verscheidene vlakken. Er zullen regelmatig experts uitgenodigd worden om ook organisatieoverschrijdend uitwisseling van ervaringen te kunnen doen. Evaluatie-criteria zorgen er ten slotte voor om het product op een objectieve manier te kunnen beoordelen.

Budget Action 2

250 000 – 500 000 €

Beneficiaries

Empowerment

 With beneficiaries

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Voor de uitwerking van het alternatief leertraject zal er rekening gehouden worden met de specifieke kenmerken van de doelgroep, met name allochtone studenten die instromen, doorstromen/afhaken en uitstromen naar de arbeidsmarkt. Dit wordt gerealiseerd op verschillende manieren: het opzetten van een performant netwerk waar intervisie en overlegmomenten met de doelgroep centraal staan, de expertise van de projectpartners in de materie (allochtone studentenorganisatie, secundaire school met een groot aantal allochtone studenten, het uiteindelijke werkveld, …), contacten van de projectpartners met andere organisaties, …
Het alternatief leertraject wordt uitgetest bij een beperkte pilootgroep. Met hun suggesties zal er ook rekening gehouden worden in de verdere uitwerking van het project.

 Between national partners

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·De dagelijkse opvolging van de projectactiviteiten en –afspraken en de budgetopvolging gebeuren door de Projectcoördinator aan de hand van het algemene projectplan en de activiteitenplannen. De coördinator bereidt alle werkvergaderingen voor, leidt ze en volgt ze op en staat ook in voor de rapporteringen. Over de kwaliteitsbewaking van alle activiteiten (planning, ontwerp en ontwikkeling, diffusie en rapportering) waakt bovendien de stuurgroep, samengesteld uit een vertegenwoordiger van elk van de partners
·De afwijkingen m.b.t. het projectplan en de aanvraag worden steeds besproken op de stuurgroepvergadering.
·Procesevaluatie: continue opvolging van de activiteiten door de projectcoördinator en de bespreking van de gemaakte vorderingen per projectpartner op de stuurgroepvergadering.
·Kwaliteitscontrole: De kwaliteit van de verschillende producten worden systematisch gemeten (aan de hand van vooraf afgesproken kwaliteitsindicatoren) en hierover wordt gerapporteerd aan de stuurgroep.
·Productevaluatie: validatie door externe experten, aangesteld door de projectpartners.

Transnationality

 Percentage of the budget for transnational activities

• 10.0%

 Transnational Co-operation Partnerships

Background

 Involvment in previous EU programmes

• One partner involved in A&E

National Partners

Agreement Summary

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De Vlaamse samenwerkingsovereenkomst is samen met de raamovereenkomst consulteerbaar op het ESF-Agentschap.

EHSAL

Contact person(s)

Brussels Nederlands comite voor tewerkstelling en opleiding

Contact person(s)

CLB Pieter Breughel

Contact person(s)

Gesubsidieerde vrije basisschool en kleuterschool Scheut

Contact person(s)

Koninklijk Atheneum Schaarbeek-Evere vestiging Victor Horta

Contact person(s)

Provinciaal minderhedencentrum Antwerpen

Contact person(s)

Schoolopbouwwerk Brussel vzw

Contact person(s)

ODILE