Transversal Skills in Apprenticeships
In the course of a series of lectures and workshops dedicated to vocational education and training, the Erasmus+ VET Team Austria invited current initiatives and projects in the sector to enhance the discussion on current discourses.
This was an excellent opportunity to present TRANSVAL-EU as a project in general to a new target group and also to specifically address “Du kannst was!”, an alternative route to acquiring an apprenticeship through validation. Austria’s Agency for Education and Internationalization (OeAD) as project coordinator in TRANSVAL-EU provided a brief project overview as well as conceptual insights to transversal skills and competences. The Chamber of Labour for Salzburg (AK Salzburg) and the vocational training institute BFI Salzburg provided insights from “Du kannst was!”. The initiative is using different methods of questionnaires, portfolio analysis, qualification checks and continuous education according to the requirements of the apprenticeship. “Du kannst was!” is part of the national field trials in Austria: With the technical/professional competences in focus, it is in the piloting phase interesting to experience how transversal competences can be made visible and raise awareness for the value and the transferability of those competences; with competence-oriented job descriptions, transversal competences gain relevance.
The setting was ideal to outline the approach of how the validation and guidance practitioners have been trained in the national training for working with candidates concerning transversal skills, the implementation will be conducted until the end of the year. We are looking forward to hearing more about the experiences and outcomes!