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OPIR

General InformationECVET Technical SpecificationsPartnershipMore Information

Duration

24 months

General approach/description of the project

The partnership developed by the OPIR project aimed at strengthening the role and active involvement of the regions in the mobility of learners and young people undertaking professional training.

OPIR aimed at establishing mobility as an integrated part of young learners’ training curriculum in two distinct professions, namely hairdresser and control engineer (automation).

Several reasons underlined the choice of these two professions/sectors:

They both have a clear European dimension;

They are fast-evolving sectors: the hairdressing sector is characterised by the emergence of new trends (stylistic, hairpiece, social and medical aesthetics) and new groups with branches in several countries while the automation sector is marked by important technological changes and the development of systems used across Europe;

Job profiles for these two sectors have already been developed in all the regions involved in the OPIR project and a wide audience of learners is concerned; and

These two sectors are very different from one another: they differ in terms of tradition, products and systems of production. Therefore, this choice will help to test the transferability of tools and schemes from one sector to another.

The approach of OPIR was twofold:

OPIR compared the job profiles on which the qualifications are based and fix a methodology to translate the job profile’s key activities in learning outcomes; and

OPIR compared the job profile’s key activities in the four countries and raise commonalities to identify on which unit of learning outcome the mobility period can be established.

The final project report can be downloaded here.

Target group

Young learners that will undergo a mobility period.
VET providers within each country and/or region.

Dissemination

The Ministry of Education of the French-speaking community of Belgium is currently implementing a educational reform that takes the findings of the project into account.

On the projects website, a variety of tools and templates can be downloaded.

Transfer And Accumulation

OPIR organised a three-week mobility period in October 2010:

‘Home’ institutions were responsible for preparing the learners that will participate in the mobility period and ensuring that the selected unit of learning outcomes open to mobility will be integrated in their training curriculum;

To overcome language problems, the theoretical part of the unit of learning outcome open to mobility was taught in the ‘home’ institution. The practical part of the unit of learning outcome was be developed in the ‘hosting’ institution. Intermediary assessment, organised by the ‘home’ institution, took place before the mobility period to ensure that the young learners meet all the pre-requisites for undergoing the mobility period.

‘Hosting’ institutions were responsible for assessing the mobile learners. Assessment will cover the totality of the unit of learning outcome open to mobility (i.e. theoretical and practical part).

OPIR developed the following approach regarding assessment:

Representatives of the two professional sectors were asked to assess the importance of each key competence to carry out the activity covered by the unit of learning outcome open to mobility.

On this basis, a criterion and a set of three indicators have been developed for each competence. In addition, a weighting has been attributed to each of the three criteria. Through this assessment grid, the idea is to assess if the learner has acquired the necessary learning outcomes to carry out the job profile’s activity, taking into account the relative importance of a competence to carry out the activity.

The unit is considered validated when the learners obtained 60% of the possible score during the assessment. Each partner will then transform/evaluate this result according to their assessment culture when transferring the unit of learning outcomes to the ‘home’ institution.

The assessment grid has been developed to ensure mutual trust within the partnership. In addition to development of the assessment grid, a teacher from the ‘home’ institution will be sent to the ‘hosting’ institution to observe how the assessment is carried out by the ‘hosting’ institution. The teacher from the ‘home’ institution will not co-assess the young mobile learner but will just ensure that the evaluation is carried out accordingly to the standards set out in the assessment grid. Once transparency and mutual trust will be established among the partners, no teacher from the ‘home’ institution will attend the assessment anymore.

An example of assessment grid is provided in the PowerPoint presentation made by OPIR during the 4th pilot projects seminar in February 2010, slide 5.

Units of learning outcomes

The objective of OPIR was not to create a common qualification but to identify commonalities among the different existing national qualification and, on this basis, to set up a mobility scheme.

The approach developed by OPIR to develop units of learning outcomes was based on the analysis of the job profile and can be described as follow:

To set up a common methodology to write the units of learning outcomes;

To identify the common key activities of the two different job profiles (i.e. hairdresser and control engineer) among the different partners through the use of an analysis grid to determine on which key activities the mobility period among training centres could be set up;

To translate these key activities into learning outcomes;

To build units of learning outcomes based on the job profiles’ key activities; and

To organise the mobility on the basis of these specific units of learning outcomes.

The OPIR approach could be transferable to projects focusing on a selection of common units of learning outcomes that aim to organise mobility as part of the qualification.

ECVET Points

Allocation of the ECVET points was the responsibility of the competent national authorities. The approaches developed by the OPIR partners with regard to the ECVET point differ and can be presented as follow:

The OPIR partner from Belgium decided to allocate ECVET points to units of learning outcomes according to the relative weight/percentage of the activity within a job profile. In that regard, representatives of the two sectors were consulted;

The OPIR partner from Andalusia decided to allocate ECVET points to units of learning outcomes according to the duration of the learning process to acquire the unit of learning outcomes;

The OPIR partner from Cataluña opted for mixing these two approaches and allocating ECVET point to units of learning outcomes according both to the duration and the relative weight of the activity within the job profile.

Each partner allocated points to the national qualification, according to the logic of the system. The project does not favour one approach over another.

Consolidation of partnerships in formal agreements

A Memorandum of Understanding and a Learning Agreement have been developed by the partners in December 2009.

The partnership has now entered a phase of consolidation through the establishment and signature of Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) that will be signed by the competent institutions in each partner country (bilateral). Each partner will be responsible for identifying this institution in its own country as the situation varies across countries. Whilst the competent authority in France will be the rectorat for instance, in Spain the relevant body is the Department of Education of Cataluña, at the regional level. MoU will be signed before the mobility starts, on the basis on bilateral partnerships for mobility.

The template for learning agreements developed by OPIR goes beyond the basic information mentioned in the recommendation. It provides additional information in relation to assessment, learning activities, the pre-requisite necessary before undertaking the mobility period, and the commitment and obligations of the learner (e.g. respect of the rules of the host institution).

The Annexes to the agreement are contractual and must be negotiated by the two sides of a mobility exchange (sending and hosting institution).

Projects 2008 to 2011

Projects 2011 to 2014