Results of Open Method of Coordination among Regional Governments

Dear Readers,
SMOC partnership announces today the very end of the project : these last months have been particularly reach of events, such as the International Conference “Towards the new planning period of ESF. Regions for employment and growth” and the “Thematic Seminar on young adults and learning systems” in Florence. You will learn more about it on the following articles.
Study visits are coming to an end as well but our partners will continue on the policy learning process started thanks to SMOC. Many of them have beneficiated in phase of restructuring their local systems of this process and of the measures learnt and we believe this is one of the main outputs of the project. In addition, it is worthwhile to underline that all the measures they have shared among them in the project are accessible to everyone for free downloading at the project website: www.mutual-learning.eu (see below).
Another output of the project is a joint report among partners on the model of the benchmarking report made by Member states: “Joint progress report of Regions on the implementation of the European Lifelong Learning Strategies — Towards a Multilevel governance”. For the first time, Regional Governments will compare their data on lifelong learning field to find explanation of the improvements or of stagnation. This Report – soon available on internet – would like to represent a model for further work aimed at investigate which results different measures can have in lifelong learning fields.
If you wish further information, I warmly advice to contact Earlall secretariat and to regularly check the relevant websites: www.mutual-learning.eu, www.earlall.eu.
Enjoy your reading,
EARLALL

International Conference “Towards the new planning period of ESF. Regions for employment and growth”. September 2010, Budapest (HU).
The Conference was hosted by the Pest County Government and was the good occasion for representatives of Regional Governments all over Europe to meet and share the first provisional results of the Soft Open Method of Coordination.
4 working groups have been organised to discuss specific issues:
Lifelong learning and employment policies supported by SMOC
Transnational cooperation: Training, work and business abroad
ESF priorities and the Integration of financial tools: the relations among ESF, ERDF and LLL policies
Europe 2020: the Central Eastern European perspective

Participants have shared what they are doing in their Regions and discuss further ways to cooperate. More information on www.earlall.eu.

Thematic Seminar on young adults and learning systems. 25th November 2010, Florence (IT)
The Seminar has been the occasion for partners to present specific measures adopted in their education and training systems, their added value and their outcomes. Those presentations showed also the different approaches used in different Regions and Countries, showing also as such approaches could be complementary. The conclusions of the presentations have been well summarised by Professor Ekkehard Nuissl von Rein from the German Institute for Adult Education (DIE): “Denmark needs people to be guided; Basque Country needs people to be supported; Vastra Gotaland needs people to be properly thought, Vidin needs people to be included”. Such approaches reflect the challenges Regions are facing nowadays but show also how those approaches are in concrete complementary and how much Regions are able to share and to support each other for improving the education and training offers – responding so to future common challenges.
Presentations will be soon available on Earlall website, www.earlall.eu.

Closing balance: example of Västra Götaland Region
During the SMOC-project many new findings have been made. For Västra Götaland Region the SMOC-process has been very important especially in the development of the new apprenticeship system in Sweden as from the autumn of 2011.
VGR has been able to visit Styria and South Denmark during “regular” study visits and also during “extra” study visits, financed by municipalities in the region.
In May 5 principals responsible for apprenticeship education and training studied the Styrian measure and in September 18 Senior Officers from the Gothenburg Region (a part of Västra Götaland Region) visited South Denmark and especially the upper secondary school Hansenberg in the town Kolding. What impressed the group the most was the individual approach, the quality assurance of the apprenticeship system and the close relationship between school and working life. As the agreements on the Swedish labour market are different from the Danish ones it is not that easy to “copy and paste” but some very interesting measures might find a way into the new system in VGR.

VGR has also learnt that some of the Swedish measures are influencing other SMOC-partners. For example: The Basque County is introducing a new law on adult education based a lot on the flexible model presented during one of the study visits to VGR. Styria has sent an invitation to VGR to present the adult education system during a meeting in Austria. The STVG - on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture, as the leading ministry for the Lifelong Learning Strategy process in Austria - is the co-ordinator the EU project "Continuous Cross Border Improvement of National Lifelong Learning Strategies (CCBI-NLLS)", for the second year now. Together with their partners in Hungary and Slovak Republic they intend to develop, implement and improve national processes of national lifelong learning strategies through cross-border co-operation. (For more information please visit the website http://www.cbi-nlls.net.)
During the latest study visit to VGR a delegation from Wales took interest in measures concerning drop-outs but also found that there is a rather interesting measure concerning the education and training for students interested in becoming hair dressers. Therefore there will be an additional study visit to Gothenburg in January after the end of the SMOC-project.

www.mutual-learning.eu
The project website, one of the main products of the SMOC project, is composed by 3 parts: a database of policy measures adopted by Regional Governments, a search engine facilitating searches within websites of Regional Governments, and a list of downloadable publication about the policy learning and policy transfer process among Regional Governments, with focus on lifelong learning issues.
The first part, the database, includes all the measures partners are implementing in completion of upper secondary school, basic skills, mathematic, science and technology, lifelong learning, early school leavers. Measures are available for free downloading in English and in national language.
The search engine allows to find all webpages in the partner regions’ websites in which it is mentioned the desired key word.
The partners offer support to any institutional body interested in implementing any specific measures even after the end of the project. We would therefore welcome any Regional Government willing to be part of the process and the SMOC networks since the learning and the methodology are not ending today.
For any enquiry, please refer to Ms Torlone, coordinator of the project.

Networks in Adult Education – Cooperation on a regional, national and international Level
Winter Semester 2010/11, two-weekly, Wednesday 10-12 h

For the fifth time, the Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Duisburg-Essen in cooperation with the German Institute for Adult Education (DIE) presents the International Course of Lectures.
This year’s topic is “Networks in Adult Education – Cooperation on a regional, national and international Level”. Networks facilitate communication and prompt discussions. Because of globalisation and worldwide communication, the relevance of networks has been increasing in value. But how do networks function? What do they try to achieve and to whom they address to? Vasile Gafiuc (Romania), Jens Gärtner (Germany), Berni Brady (Ireland), André Schläfli (Switzerland), Gina Ebner (Belgium), Henning Salling Olesen (Denmark) and Ekkehard Nuissl von Rein (Germany) will give answers to these and other questions in English language.
Students, experts and interested parties are welcome to attend the lectures on campus in the Library Hall (Bibliothekssaal) at the Campus Essen or online. All lectures will be streamed on the internet, so that people can join just in time or watch the presentations later. All presentations of the last four years have been recorded on DVD and are available at adulteducation@uni-due.de .  

SMOC Leader EARLALL, Ms Flavia Buiarelli, earlall@earlall.eu
SMOC Coordinator Melius, Ms Francesca Torlone, francesca.torlone@meliusitaly.eu



SMOC - Soft open Method of Coordination from Prevalet
AGREEMENT NUMBER - 2008 - 3609 / 001 - 001
‘This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.’