Partners contacts and contexts
Contacts
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Contexts
The partners in this project represent a variety of types of educational institutions. Each has their own learner profile and specialism. However, common to all partners is that they are involved in adult education, with all the challenges that entails; such as motivating adult learners and managing the expectations and agendas that adult learners bring to the learning situation. The partners in this project wish to share best practice and develop creative and innovative approaches to addressing these issues.
Ireland: County Dublin Vocational Education Committee
- County Dublin Vocational Education Committee (Co-ordinator)
County Dublin Vocational Education Committee (VEC) is one of the largest providers of education in Ireland and delivers full-time education to over 10,000 students. The VEC’s services include: primary and second level education; adult and further education; youth services and support services such as Psychological, Childcare and Adult Guidance services. This application is submitted by County Dublin VEC on behalf of a network of six colleges that provide further and adult education under the auspices of County Dublin VEC. These colleges provide education to learners who have recently completed their second-level education and also to adult learners who may be returning to education after some years of being away from a formal education environment. These colleges face a specific challenge in engaging and motivating these students to complete their courses in a welcoming and supportive environment, and also to enable them to progress to further and higher education.
Portugal: Arte-Via Cooperativa Artística e Editorial
Arte-Via Cooperative in Lousã, district of Coimbra, is a regional, cultural, non-profit association, whose members work as volunteers. Founded in 1999, it has a senior university promoting classes for older people and migrants in a variety of subject areas, such as: painting, history,Thai Chi Chuan and English language. The cooperative organises events such as readers’ communities, international seminars, writing contests, art exhibitions and multimedia performances.
Romania: Universitatea Spiru Haret Bucuresti – CTID Ploieşti
Spiru Haret UNIVERSITY is the largest private university in Romania. Spiru Haret University of Bucharest works with the Foundation “Romania of Tomorrow” (the owner of two TV stations, one educational and a cultural one) and SC Media “Romania of Tomorrow” (which publishes over 2000 titles of books in the university's own printing press), and is led by a group of famous professors from one of the major providers of education in Romania. The staff of the three institutions is active in developing educational, scientific, cultural and social activities for life-long learning. Our institutions provide: university level education (both licence and master cycle), education for older learners - employees who complete their studies in the educational system remotely, both in Romania as well as for Romanian citizens working in the EU. In Prahova region, Spiru Haret –CTID PLOIESTI, by Spiru Haret Society for Education, Culture and Science also holds training activities for teachers (seminars, debates etc.); activities to motivate all adults in order to attract them into a continuous process of learning; and partnerships with major institutions of culture (concerts, theatre performances, books etc.) that aim to transform the leisure of adults into a joyful learning experience to encourage them to actively engage in learning.
Spiru Haret SN-ECS Prahova wishes to develop, as a specific aim of this project, support activities for students, parents and students who have returned to education (due the loss of their jobs in EU) or students from disadvantaged areas (rural areas or parents with modest incomes).
Czech Republic: Palacký University Olomouc
Palacký University is the second oldest university in the Czech republic founded by Jesuits in 1573. Nowadays, as a public higher education centre, it consists of 8 faculties with approximately 21000 students and about 1000 members of the academic staff. The university provides all levels of academic degrees (bachelor, master and PhD) and plays an important role in the development of the surrounding region, which has an above-average unemployment rate in comparison with rest of the country.
The Faculty of Natural sciences, as a partner of this project, would like to develop and share creative and innovative activities and approaches to Further Education for science teachers in order to allow them to motivate their own students and to share this knowledge with a network of cooperating faculty schools around the whole region. We are interested in developing important competences, namely competences in math, science and technology.
Lousã presentation (1.39 MiB) (1.4 MB)
United Kingdom: Joanna Pinewood Education Limited
Joanna Pinewood Education is a proactive, personalised tutoring facility in London, operating from two tuition centres: one in Wandsworth, SW12 8TY and the other in Uxbridge UB8 2QW, covering Kent, Surrey South and West London. We offer specialised holistic tutoring programmes for students of all ages, abilities and levels. Every student can learn, just not on the same day or the same way. We offer one-to-one tuition and group tuition 7 days a week during term and school holidays. Our role is to counsel, facilitate and catalyse the student to be more creative in discovering themselves and the way that they can organise their study. Through working with adults we use what we learn and pass our experiences on to our younger students.
We run elocution workshops for migrants to learn English. Many Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian, African and Asian migrants understand English but are afraid to speak for fear of appearing foolish. We train migrants and older parents to support their primary-school children in Key Stage 3 through homework and revision. We also tutor, support and mentor older learners.
The beneficiaries of the project in the UK will be older adult learners: East Europeans settling in South East London, Lambeth, Wandsworth, Hammersmith, Ealing, Hounslow, Slough(Buckinghamshire) and Hillingdon; also ladies from the Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Afro-Caribbean community resident in the London Borough of Hillingdon; also carers of relatives from the Wandsworth Carers’ Centre and Hillingdon Carers’ Centre. Our intention is to visually record good practice and difficulties and help organise a mobility workshop that develops innovative ways of teaching communication in a foreign language (English for Migrants) and motivating learners with learning difficulties.
Spain: Centro de Educación de Adultos, Cáceres
This is an Adult Education provider that belongs to the regional Education Authority. It covers a wide range of demand in the area of Caceres. We serve more than 3000 students. Our school provides formal education for illiterate adults, for adult learners that are seeking the Secondary Education Certificate, and vocational training in printing for a group of early school leavers. We prepare people older than 25 who want to take the exam to enter into the University. Finally, we provide non-formal education to different groups of adult people: Spanish for foreigners, mainly migrant workers; Computing, and history of Caceres.
For the Secondary Education Certificate, the Institution offers three different modalities: Face-to-face, distance and E-learning. The distance learning modality covers most villages of the province, with the backing of part time teachers hired locally by local Authorities. Most of the students failed to get the basic certificate in the regular school, and they get a second chance in our school. Teachers from our school have been, and still are, involved in the process of implementing basic skills into the Adult Education Corpus in our region.
Germany: Akademie 2. Lebenshälfte im Land Brandengurg e.V.
Förderverein Akademie 2. Lebenshälfte is a non-profit organisation with the aim of integrating older people into the workforce and in social life through educating, advising, counselling and self-help. The main objective is developing the competences of the older generation. The academy has experience in the education of older people for more than 15 years in Brandenburg/Germany. It has been developing more and more into a centre of excellence for adult education. Over 15 000 older adults from several areas have improved their lives by availing of our services over the last number of years.
The “Akademie 2. Lebenshälfte“ has out-reach centres in ten towns and a lot of partners. For example: together with companies from North-east-Brandenburg, as well as the Institute for Development of Companies and Regions of technical Eberswalde, the Academy developed the project ”Campus BARUM 50+” for older unemployed people. It is a new way of “learning by doing”.
Malta: MacDAC Engineering Consultancy Bureau (MECB) LTD
MECB Ltd, a corporate member of the Malta Chamber of Commerce & Enterprise, is an established consultancy bureau providing adults in public and private entities with specialized training and technical support services, including mentoring, related to a range of technologies and methodologies. Relevant to this project is that MECB can provide expertise and relevant case-studies on the core competences of creativity and innovation. There are methods which can be learnt to make individuals more creative and innovative. Of relevance to this project is that MECB has acquired expertise on a range of skills and competencies through its consulting jobs for both private and public entities, including: creativity & innovation management techniques (IMT), quality, environmental, technology management & selection, design, computer aided design, 3D modeling, e-Learning (Learning management systems), lean manufacturing and maintenance management. Furthermore, MECB can share experience gained from a number of previous EU projects including Leonardo da Vinci, Grundtvig 1 and Grundtvig 3.
Turkey: Andirin Halk Egitimi Merkezi
ACEP is the only adult education centre in Andirin. The province is a rural area and 75% of the population is living in villages or rural areas. It is difficult for the centre to reach or take attention of everyone. The main aim of the centre is spreading adult education throughout the population by making learning joyful to everyone. It has more than 1500 students and this number depends on the courses we hold during the year. Today we have 190 staff; 5 of which are full-time staff. The centre holds a wide-range of courses for adult learners. There are a variety of subjects ranging from ICT competences, language learning, to fruit growing or mechanics. There are no application criteria. People can apply for a course or demand a course with a group of 12.
Malta: Office of the College Principal, Saint Theresa College
St Theresa College includes a network of seven state schools of which four are primary and three are secondary schools. Primary schools host children from early age of three to ten years. Secondary schools host students from eleven to sixteen years of age. The College includes around 400 teachers and it provides compulsory education for almost 4000 students, professional training and development sessions for the teaching staff in different specialist areas, and professional training and development sessions for parents.
Since the 1988 Education Act, the administration of state schools falls under the responsibility of a school council which is made up of the following eight adults: three parents, three school teachers, the head of school and an appointed President by the Ministry of Education (Malta Government, Act No. XXIV, 1988, part IV, sec.21, 2b). Since the amendments in 2007 of the Education Act (1988), state schools are networked around State Colleges lead by a College Principal and managed by a College Council of Head-teachers.
The Office of The College Principal will assign the administrative aspects of this project to two personnel from the office, while the authorised person will be the College Principal.
For the purpose of the proposed project, St Theresa College has a number of potential options to focus on: (i) professional training and development sessions to the representative parents who serve as council school members; (ii) professional training and development sessions for parents (of around 4000 students within the college) in specialised areas; (iii) professional training and development sessions for the college teaching staff. According to the proposed Project, the first option is the most practical and manageable.
Saint Therese College adds value to the proposed project for a number of reasons. There are a number of assets within the College including its human resources, amongst which are the thinking skills teachers who can provide their expertise in methodologies for creativity and innovation, and the art teachers who master and teach creativity and innovation. Another asset is the fact that the College is an educational institution and thus it has all necessary facilities necessary for the delivery of training and development sessions.
