European cooperation

In 2005, the Youth Council as well as previously the Head of State and Government, accepted a European youth pact. The result has been that the “cross-section youth policy”, backed by the pact, has been made known on a European and national level in the framework of the Lisbon strategy, in particular stressing the importance of new skills for young people and recognising the different ways of acquiring skills. The council settlement of 2004 about voluntary youth activities emphasizes the role of the volunteer to ease the transition from education to employment and adult life, and the council settlement of 2006 about recognising formal and informal education in terms of European adolescents confirms the potential that the scope of education and training has.

Four strategic objectives: the four long-term strategic objectives that will lead the cooperation policy until 2010 are:
1.    making permanent learning and mobility between countries a reality;
2.    improve the quality and efficiency of education and training;
3.    promote equity, social unity and active citizenship; and
4.    increase creativity and innovation, including business spirit, in all levels of education and training.

European cooperation

A key element of the European strategy to confront future challenges consists of improving and increasing citizens’ skills. Europe cannot compete in price, however it can lead in terms of innovation.

However, to focus more on innovation we should distance ourselves from less qualified jobs. And given that Europe cannot allow any of its citizens to actively participate in the economy and society, complementary changes also need to be made.  Everybody should have a real opportunity to participate, progress and be successful, and this is where education and training comes in.

Educational and training policies can contribute considerably to overcoming these challenges. However, the cooperation and training should not be considered in an isolated way. Education models the lives of young people and is one of the necessary conditions for them to achieve personal independence. This means that it also represents a priority for youth policies.

Education and training, as well as youth policies, are the responsibilities of national governments. However, many of the challenges previously outlined are common for all countries and so some of the objectives could be achieved more easily if countries would learn from each other.  Furthermore, certain targets, like helping students, pupils and volunteers to move between countries in a straight forward manner cannot be achieved if countries work independently. This is a field that requires cooperation on behalf of all members of the European Union.

Fighting discrimination

Besides the effort done by the European Commission and countries discrimination these days is still a problem that affects a percentage of the population. Mobility among countries has brought new ways of discrimination based on ethnic origin, grounds of age, grounds of disability, sexual orientation, grounds of gender, religion of beliefs, etc.

Education without prejudice is an anti discriminatory educational project designed to built and support civic society. As stereotypes and prejudice result in discrimination practices in our societies, the project aims to work against stereotypes and prejudice, to support creating new democratic society free from discrimination.

Project will focus on gender bias and homophobia, still present in European society. Discrimination in those spheres will be overcome only when stereotypes and prejudice disappear. That is why the project aim is to prepare educational anti discriminatory curricula and manual, to prepare teacher and/or trainers and to prepare the scheme of teaching of anti discriminatory trainers.

Anti discriminatory curricula will be based on the studies on the main problems and needs of partners’ countries. Potential trainers will be taught about basic spheres of discrimination in their own environment, methodology of successful teaching and particular methods of anti discriminatory training. Methodology of anti discriminatory training will be based on workshop method combined with online activities available on the open source platform. The e-learning part will be tailored to suit the learning needs of the target group. During the design phase, the requirements concerning the learning preferences will be investigated and taken into account while developing online activities. The accepted didactical and instructional methods will enable to create the content according to the user requirements.

Interactive Game creation

As opposed to the integration of complex, expensive in production and commercialised games in didactical settings, this project clearly follows the second approach in serious game- based learning that involved learners and transform them into game structures and principles.

The project aims and outputs are:

- To develop a freely available online editor published under the open - source principles for serious game creation that helps teachers and students that lack a technical background to actively participate in the game - creation process.

- To develop an online- portal and game- server that makes these newly created games available and features them in a miniature virtual world to facilitate the exchange and further creation of serious online- games for learning.

- To facilitate the integration of games from the online- portal / game- server in learning management systems (e.g. Moodle) and social communities.

- To offer the game editor in the following languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Finninsh and Dutch.

This novel learning and teaching approach of the project leads to an enhanced participation of the learners in their own learning process and addresses know- how, abilities, skills and models ways of communication and social networking, which young people are familiar with today. Thus students will be made to teachers by offering their expertise in gaming and social networking. Teachers can easily integrate their content- related expertise without the need for technical know- how or background. Additional impacts are cross- cultural interactions between users and developers as well as an increase in learners’ motivation and competences.

Master-D will be a partners in this project working closely with EDEN network in the Quality Plan and other activities.

UWS

Founded in 1897 to offer vocational courses, UWS began offering degree studies in the early 1900s and matured to University status in 1992. Currently some 1.300 staff guiding more than 10.000 students in over 100 degree courses designed to give them the qualifications, skills and personal attributes they need to compete in the employment market and make a valued contribution within their chosen career. Close co-operation with colleagues in industry and commerce means that our programmes reflect the latest thinking and trends in the marketplace and complement the demands of employers.

EDEN

The European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN), established as European Distance Education Network, is the most comprehensive European association in the field of open, flexible, distance and e-learning. Its aim is to foster developments in distance and e-learning through the provision of a platform for co-operation and collaboration between a wide range of institutions, networks and individuals concerned with open, flexible, distance and e-learning in Europe.

ITT

Tralee is a university level institution and was established in 1977 and delivers courses in Business Studies, Humanities, Hotel, Catering & Tourism, Engineering and Construction Studies, Science & Computing, and Nursing and Healthcare. It has over 4,500 full-time and part-time students and 250 staff. The Mission statement of the institute is: “To excel in teaching, research and development work, for the benefit of students, industry and the wider community.”