regalenetwork.eu

Regional capacity for Adult Learning and Education

Uncategorized

by

PILOTING: Varaždin County is forming Center for education of adults for gifted preschoolers

Written by Iva Janežič, Varaždin county.

By establishing a Professional Development Center for gifted preschool children, meaning clear vertical from kindergarten through primary and secondary education and beyond, Varaždin County is leading the way in caring for and working with gifted children. This Croatian region has already formed 14 centres of excellence over the past 15 years, and five more professional centres of excellence in the last year. They systematically work with children of primary and secondary school age.

Now by forming a Professional Development Centre for Gifted Children where kindergarten teachers will receive a specific type of education their goal is to start working with gifted children from the kindergarten age in order to detect child’s talents at that early age and enable their further development. They also want to encourage all kindergartens in the north of Croatia to take care of children’s talents from an early age. For these purposes a gathering of representatives of Associates of Kindergartens in Northern Croatia (from five counties: Varaždin, Međimurje, Koprivnica-Križevačka, Krapina-Zagorje and Bjelovar-Bilogora) was organized.

First meeting was held in March on the occasion of the Giftedness Day in order to connect people on this unique topic and provide them with sufficient information from eminent experts and persons who deal with giftedness in the field of preschool education.

The second meeting was organized in June where founders, directors of the kindergarten and county representatives gathered and a team to create program guidelines was formed. Robert Kelemen, director of the public institution “European Talent Center Croatia – Centers of Excellence of Varaždin County” explained that intention is to set up a network for talent development that would become nationally recognizable.

"We want to raise the level of competence of educators as well and enable them to recognize gifted children and standardize practices in kindergartens so that we do not lose talents at the transition from kindergarten to school. Trained educators dedicated to work with the gifted will have a crucial role here."
Robert Kelemen,
Director of the public institution "European Talent Center Croatia - Centers of Excellence of Varaždin County"

Head of the Administrative Department for Education, Culture and Sports of Varaždin County, Ph.D. Miroslav Huđek referred to a past work of the Centers of excellence, as well as future plans.

"Every community, whether it is state, a county or another, must have the ability to create talents, but also the ability to retain them later once when they finish their education. This program was designed with this goal in mind. The vertical goes from kindergartens to primary and secondary schools, and there is a part when all our young gifted people finish their education to motivate them to come back as well."
Ph.D. Miroslav Huđek
Head of the Administrative Department for Education, Culture and Sports of Varaždin County

The person in charge of the organization and development of this network will be Dr. sc. Jasna Cvetković-Lay, whose area of speciality is early identification and creation of gifted programs. She introduced the audience to the scientific concept and the work materials necessary for the implementation of the program that encourages the giftedness of children of early and preschool age.

"This networking is a great initiative and we have to take advantage of it. Searching for talents is necessary, and it is possible to spot them already in preschool age. I am glad that I have the opportunity to share my knowledge with you and I believe that we will expand the knowledge of educators about the phenomenon of giftedness and help them to spot such children in their educational groups in a timely manner." and "Even the most famous people were children and if they weren’t recognized early enough, with their abilities and talents and not being further expertly monitored and encouraged, the result would have failed. That’s why it is best to start from kindergarten, from preschool age. Of course, this work is the most specific, because it is very demanding to correctly identify children at this age. But it can be done. Now Varaždin County will have experts in identifying and encouraging giftedness in preschool age that will secure an advantage over other regions."
Dr. sc. Jasna Cvetković-Lay

Additional links

by

PILOTING: EARLALL and EAEA host REGALE Pilot Focus Group on Capacity Building in ALE

Written by Charlotte Ede, EARLALL.

On 20 April, the European Association of the Education of Adults (EAEA) and the European Association of Regional and Local Authorities for Lifelong Learning (EARLALL) hosted a focus group on ALE policy among regional and adult education stakeholders in Brussels. 

 

As part of their work in the Erasmus+ REGALE – Regional Capacity for Adult Learning and Education – project, EAEA and EARLALL hosted a focus group of regional, ALE and European policy-maker representatives who are interested in developing the capacity of regions in adult learning and
education. The focus groups come off the back of the publication of REGALE country reports: ‘Adult Learning Policies in Europe: An Insight of Regional and Local Stakeholders’.


The report highlights that while local and territorial networks are the solutions to the lack of overarching adult learning systems, in Europe, public policy pays very little attention to the quality of adult learning provisions. With this in mind, participants were asked to share their input that will help shape the policy roadmap that the project is developing to fill this gap.

Gina Ebner, EAEA Secretary General welcomed the group to the REGALE project, indicating the strong results of the project with excellent cooperation links and fruitful study exchanges that inspired partners. Then Laurin Reding, European Advisor For Education at SwissCore introduced SwissCore as the liaison office for the adult education sector in Brussels, with a strong focus on collaboration on education across European actors. He highlighted the importance of cooperation between SwissCore and Movetia (an EARLALL Associate Member) and SVEB (a board member of EAEA) and welcomed the group to the premises.


After the presentations of the REGALE project, the participants were welcomed to preview the draft policy recommendations on Regional Capacity Building in Adult Education. Participants strongly agreed with some of the recommendations, including the importance of giving new impetus to the existing European programs for Adult Learning. They also indicated areas of improvement to the policy recommendations, such as including Individual Learning Accounts and Micro-Credentials as specific and flexible tools that should be adopted at the local level.


EAEA and EARLALL took note of the discussions and will use the results to feed into fine-tuning the recommendations. These will then contribute to the policy roadmap, outlining specific tools for developing capacity at the local level, across Europe.


You can view the current range of resources on www.regalenetwork.eu including:
– A repository of best practices
– Capacity-building webinars
– The Report and report summaries on the challenges and opportunities of ALE capacity-building in the project partners’ countries.

by

WEBINAR: Voucher-based adult education scheme

Objectives

For years, a labour market has indicated a lack of qualified employers, but also the fact that skills that workers possess are not in line with the current needs of the economy. Also, due to the lack of required competencies, unemployed people cannot meet the expectations of today’s job market. Taking into account all these indicators and in order to encourage additional training and adoption of new skills among adults, Croatian Ministry of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy in cooperation with the Ministry of Science and Education has launched a system of vouchers for adult education in April 2022. Croatian Employment Service Department is conducting the voucher-based adult education scheme together with the Ministry.

 

The webinar will introduce participants to the voucher-based adult education scheme in which it is planned to include 4,000 people over the age of 15 this year, and in total 30,000 people by 2026, who will acquire green and digital partial or micro-qualifications.

Speakers and facilitators

Kristina Mazalin, mag. psych., is a Senior Expert Adviser in Career Guidance and Education Department within the Central Office of Croatian Employment Service (HZZ), Department for Career Guidance and Education.

Her work focuses on helping to develop and implement vocational guidance and career counselling strategies, as well as education/training measures of active labour market policy, alongside newly established voucher-based adult education project. The scope of work itself involves projects and programmes at European and national level, coordination and cooperation within the  service, advisers in regional and local offices and relevant stakeholders.

Agenda

Format and registration

The webinar will take place on Zoom.

 

To participate in the webinar, please complete the registration form.

by

WEBINAR: Guidance in Adult Learning – Trends and Innovation

Objectives

As the European Commission report on ‘Lifelong guidance policy and practice in the EU: trends, challenges and opportunities (published in February 2020) indicates new and innovative guidance practices and tools are emerging in response to labour market changes and new modes of delivery, the implementation of new technologies, policy and funding changes, coordination of services and access to new labour market information. The trend towards a more integrated lifelong service includes an emphasis on user centrality, increased tailoring of provision to user preferences, and greater networking possibilities provided by digital technologies. As guidance and learning take place in more diverse settings with ICT becoming more embedded, a single practitioner, professional group or organisation will no longer be able to respond to the increasing need for support among more diverse user groups. This implies the need to create multi-professional and cross-sectoral networks. LLG is an example of an area where there should be shared policy and administrative responsibility among several ministries at national and regional levels.


These challenges have also been highlighted by the respondent to the REGALE survey distributed in 2021 and reaching ALE providers and regional/local authorities. This webinar tries to highlight new trends and innovations in the field of career guidance in different European regions. It provides an insight into innovative practical approaches of guidance systems and services on the local and regional level and in the way they develop.

Practical information

Agenda