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"QATRAIN 2 - Quality Assurance and Accessible Training 2"

Financed: European Union, Life Long Learning Programme 2007-2013, Sectorial Programme Leonardo Da Vinci, Transfer of Innovation

Code: UK/07/LLP-LdV/TOI-065

Durata: 01.11.2007 - 31.10.2009

Coordonator: University of Worcester, UK

Summary

Qatrain 2 will enable teachers and trainers to help the integration of disabled people into mainstream VET by removing unintended barriers to their entry and successful participation.  Such improvements will open to disabled people a wider range of opportunities and qualifications that will widen career options and be a major step to reduce discrimination against them. Full accessibility for disabled people to mainstream VET requires adjustments in teaching, learning and assessment and teachers and trainers are best positioned to do this.  But competence concerning provision for disabled people in VET is not a feature of teacher training in most countries. Qatrain 2 will transfer to VET, through a process of thorough review and adaptation a resource with a very successful track-record in tertiary education. Two new countries will participate (Romania and Turkey) and new websites will be set up in all 5 countries specifically to address the needs of users in VET.  This will be an important resource to be drawn on in initial and continuing teacher training. It will be complemented by a toolkit for identifying needs and promoting the use of the project’s resources in meeting these needs and by an introductory tutorial concerning the teaching of entrepreneurialism as an example of how barriers can be resolved. The partnership includes a strong range of experience and user groups and is well-integrated into stakeholder networks at national and European levels.  The impact of the project will raise awareness of, and enable staff to respond to, increased participation in mainstream VET by disabled people – which has been shown to be a powerful combination for change in tertiary education.

Aims

• Qatrain will transfer a proven online resource to enable teachers, trainers and all involved in curriculum planning/ VET provision to improve the accessibility of mainstream VET for disabled people.
• Through this transfer, Qatrain will transform a package originally developed for tertiary education into a form targeted for users and a new country (Romania) and promote an environment, favourable for change in Turkey.
• Qatrain will therefore contribute to LLL targets of improving the participation rate of disabled people in VET and their integration into mainstream provision so helping them achieve learning outcomes that will enhance their employability and improve their ability to compete in the job-market.

Specific objectives

• To conduct research in each country to identify a set of core learning activities representative of non-tertiary VET and so to develop a revised online SCIPS/Qatrain package for non-tertiary VET.
• To develop 4 versions of this revised package, each translated and adapted to meet its national context and organised to enable VET staff to access material directly relevant to their work, in ways that will be directly usable in both initial and in-service teacher-training for VET staff.
• To produce a support toolkit that will enable VET providers and individual VET staff, to identify their training needs in relation to the provision of access for disabled people.
• To ensure that VET staff and disabled people have an appropriate, continuing, role in the development of the project and the materials it will produce.
• To develop, adapt and translate a module about the teaching of enterprise as both an introductory tutorial for the online package and to help improve the employability of disabled people.
• To maintain rigorous quality assurance, with regular financial and activity monitoring throughout the project, accompanied by systematic internal and external evaluation.
• To establish a transnational steering group, on which all partners will be represented,  that will take overall responsibility for the quality management of the project, for monitoring the progress of the workplan and for ensuring the project achieves its targets and delivers its planned outputs.
• To establish 5 national steering groups, representing target groups and stakeholders to oversee the national workplan and to report progress to the transnational steering group.
• To conduct a systematic valorisation programme at national and European levels, throughout the project, to promote knowledge of the work of the project and ensure its full exploitation.

To ensure that the outcomes of the project are maintained after the formal end of the project and that they continue to provide support for VET once funding for Qatrain 2 is exhausted

Qatrain 2 will adapt the online package from Qatrain to make new online packages to meet the needs of non-tertiary VET in each partner country.  It will do this by identifying, from targeted research in each country, a core list of learning activities representative of work in non-tertiary VET, using the results to build the main browse/search function in the new online package.  Users will be able to identify problems arising in typical teaching and learning situations, locate good practice and solutions for these problems and therefore to plan and deliver their own teaching to maximise opportunities  for disabled people The new online packages will integrate content from the existing resource, where this is appropriate for non-tertiary VET, alongside new material that will be produced as required to ensure that, fully translated and adapted, it meets the needs of its users in non-tertiary VET. 
A new module providing an introductory tutorial in the teaching of entrepreneurialism and enterprise will help new users and directly support an important area of employment for some disabled people. Qatrain 2 will enhance the transfer by developing a needs-analysis tool to enable teachers, trainers and VET providers to evaluate their own needs in improving their provision for disabled people.  It will draw upon the experience of partners from Qatrain (in Greece and Bulgaria) where the transfer will be one between target-segments of VET (from tertiary to other segments), while also building a wholly new site in Romania and doing foundation work of awareness-raising and promotion in Turkey.

Target groups

The most immediate target groups for the project are teachers and trainers in non-tertiary VET and all staff concerned with the development of curricula and the provision of VET programmes.  They need a package that will improve their ability to teach, support the learning of, and assess people with disabilities. Data collected for the Qatrain project in countries as diverse as France, Greece, Bulgaria and Poland clearly showed that institutions and their staff were ill-equipped to meet the needs of disabled people - not because staff were unwilling, but because they do not know how.  This lack of knowledge can produce a fear of the unknown and also make staff reluctant to engage with the needs of this group of (current and potential) students. The experience of the SCIPS project in the UK and of the Qatrain project in 4 other European countries, as well as work in the Middle East and Australia, shows that the best way to tackle this problem is by providing reliable, targeted, user-friendly, information and guidance.  Data concerning use of the Qatrain site demonstrates its value to users:

Users will be involved throughout, with research panels of 30 users in each country that will be developing a new online resource.  During the development of each site the project staff will work with a consultative group of 5-6 users, whose input will inform the details of the online package.   The piloting of the online packages will involve two groups: one, again of (on average) 30 users will be used for testing the package, the other with 5-6 users in each country, will provide feedback about the refinements required to meet the outcomes of the testing procedure.  In Turkey a smaller research exercise will be carried out to establish the context for work parallel to that being conducted in the other partner countries, again with a panel of approximately 30 potential users of the resource.

Users

The potential direct users of the project are the larger community of teachers, trainers and other staff and providers of VET from which immediate users are drawn. Apart from these users, who will benefit by the increase in their skills and competences, the main beneficiaries of the project will be disabled people who will benefit by better provision in VET. VET policy across Europe is increasingly designed to encourage more disabled people to participate in mainstream VET.  (E) Teachers and trainers recognise a quicker pace of change but know that they are ill-equipped to meet the challenge.  Qatrain 2 fills that gap with national packages for integration into initial and continuing teacher training as well as independent self-development. VET providers, policy-makers and providers of training for teachers and trainers will use Qatrain2 to inform the framework within which teachers and trainers function, and students learn, so the improvement of access for disabled people is within their responsibility. As with all online resources, user-numbers are difficult to estimate, but at least 100 promotional guides will be published in each country and many more users than this are expected.

The cascading of benefits is therefore straightforward:  better information leads to better teaching and better support for teaching. This then links the staff who use Qatrain 2 to the long-term beneficiaries:  disabled people, who will have new training opportunities, and more effective learning environments, made available to them as a result of the improved practices of those who teach them and improved design of training programmes.  All users and beneficiaries of the project will be involved throughout.  In all countries, disabled people and VET practitioners will be members of  the National Steering Groups and the project partnership has been selected to ensure that both these key stakeholder groups have substantial representation.

Partners:

Universitatea din Worcester, UK (coordinator organization)
http://www.worcester.ac.uk

Asociatia Marie Curie, Bulgaria
http://www.marie-curie-bg.org

University of Ioannina, Grecia
http://www.uoi.gr

Asociatia "Fundatia H", Romania
http://www.fundatiah.ro

Institutul de Management Kavrakogoglu, Turcia
http://www.kavrakoglu.com

more details: www.qatrain2.eu

"This project has been funded with the support of European Commission in the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci program. The content of this website reflects only the partnership view and the Commision cannot hold responsability for any use of the information contained therein."

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