“Skills for Life”

“Skills for Life” project was born according to the expectations of the labor market. As VET schools, we are expected to raise the students with the necessary skills and competences. But a lot of studies show that even though the students are equipped with hard skills, they often lack the ability to organize, adapt and strategically apply their specific skills to new situations and circumstances. They are the so-called “soft skills”, or in other words transferable skills that are common to almost all complex endeavours and apply across all fields, such as communicating, problem-solving, flexibility, persistence, resilience and creativity.

This project aims to develop many soft skills of young people, prepare them for jobs and smooth their initial transitions into the labor market. Six vocational schools from Estonia, Sicily, N. Macedonia, Poland, Austria and Turkey came together to provide their students with generic, transferable skills to support occupational mobility and lifelong learning, and with occupationally-specific skills that meet employers’ immediate needs.

We will mainly use eTwinning to contact with each other, share the outcomes of the project(documents, videos, pictures, etc.) and disseminate it. Other communication tools will also be used like WhatsApp, Skype and Messenger. We will use methods like station, role-playing, debates and discussions, six thinking hats, drama, brain storming, games, etc which give students the opportunity to think, react and act. An environment will be created to let them express their ideas, experiences and feelings without judgement or classic evaluation. They will evaluate their own learning with self assessment tools and learning diaries. We will use ice breakers, warm ups and energizers as well to support diversity and inclusion.

There will be 6 meetings to 6 partner schools. 2 of them will be without students according to the objectives of the project. At the end of this project, students will be able to explore, experience and develop some soft skills like communication, team building, leadership, team work, organisational and time management, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, conflict management, adaptability, work ethic, motivation, working well under pressure and public speaking.

They will also improve their language and digital skills while preparing presentations, doing the activities of this project travelling, visiting the partner schools and other institutions. Also, the partners will have a wide set of tools, resources, exercises and training materials supporting VET trainees and VET professionals, allowing the inclusion of soft skills in regular VET, to combat failure in education and increase the employability rates of their students, through the acquisition, development & assessment of soft skills, in line with market needs.