The VENHANS project has represented a unique opportunity to think about the role and the image of vocational training in Europe. It has been a journey that continues and from which we have acquired an even greater awareness of our responsibility to our members, and to VET providers and beneficiaries in general.
The project was conceived with the aim of supporting EU Associations of VET Providers to strengthen their cooperation within the framework of the VET4EU2 platform. During the last years, the increased importance of VET as key for the socio-economic development of Europe, the need to promote its image and increase the quality of the training offer has given so high relevance to the work of the European Associations of VET Providers.
In 2010, at the occasion of the presentation of the Bruges Communiqué, four European Associations of VET providers decided to join forces to influence the policy content. This first attempt of cooperation have been followed by others and led up in 2014 to the creation of the VET4EU2 platform as a permanent framework for cooperation, joined by two additional associations for Academic and Professional Higher Education. As of today, VET4EU2 is composed of 6 EU umbrella organisations: EVTA, EVBB, EfVET, EUproVET, EURASHE, EUCEN.
VET4EU2 stands for the broadness, richness and variety of Vocational Education and Training
As the biggest platform of European VET providers, VET4EU2 stands for the broadness, richness and variety of Vocational Education and Training on all levels of education as initial and continuous VET, higher VET and professional HE. VET4EU2 gives voice to many different stakeholders involved in education and training in Europe and even beyond.
Funded by the Erasmus + programme through the Key Action 3 call “Networks and Partnerships for Vocational Education and Training providers, the project VENHANS – VET European Networking Enhancement represents a fundamental milestone in the evolution of the VET4EU2 platform. With the VENHANS project, VET4EU2 tried to take a step forward in this shared cooperation by structuring the work around three Action Plans in response to the main challenges that VET providers and stakeholders face while dealing with topics as internationalisation, vocational excellence, representativeness, sustainability of their actions.
Through the implementation of the Action Plans on NETWORKING (WP2), CAPACITY-BUILDING (WP3), DISSEMINATION / PROMOTION (WP4), VET4EU2 tried to address the challenges by developing a series of activities and tools to support their members and VET providers in Europe and beyond to boost their representativeness at the international, national and regional levels; promote the memberships to intermediary bodies; create networking opportunities; support decision-makers in the VET policies development; increase the quality of the training provision; promote the concept of excellence in VET, as a benchmark for the development of strategies and bottom-up approaches at a local level.
Here some figures to assess the great impact generated by the VENHANS project:
- 800 VET practitioners registered to the VET4EU2 online hub;
- 300 participants attended webinars in English and national languages;
- 1000 participants in total attended events and workshops;
- 100 participants attended PLRs on internationalisation and vocational excellence;
- Two benchmarking tools have been created, updated and translated into all EU languages
- 100 articles on VET good practices in Europe have been published in the four issues of the VET Gazette
- 10000 recipients have been reached through communications on social media channels.
Anyway, the success of VENHANS can be measured not only by the figures, but also by the enthusiasm shown by the people involved in the implementation of the activities and the participants attending the VENHANS final events, a sign that professionals in Europe and beyond are more than willing to gather together and find common solutions to improve VET. And also a good sign that EU Associations of VET Providers still play a fundamental role in ensuring that needs, expectations, but also will and efforts are channeled in the most effective direction.
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