"BACKGROUND The tourism industry is a key sector of the EU. It is, in fact, over 10% of EU GDP (including the linked industries) and employs 9.7 million people and 1.8 million companies. In our country, the industry has, as a whole, about 191.000 businesses and, on 31st December 2015, 886.000 employees, while in the two regions covered by the project (Sicily and Calabria), between 2015 and the third quarter of 2016, employment in the tourism sector has recorded an average increase compared to 2013-2014, by 3.8% in Sicily and 2.7% in Calabria. The data and projections show, however, on the one hand, the expansion of the sector and the tourist attractiveness of the two regions and, on the other hand, emphasize the need to provide trained young staff, highly qualified and able to respond positively to new and high competence requested by the local labor market. OBJECTIVES In line with the objectives of the EU 2020 Strategy and ET 2020, WORK AWAY offers young participants the opportunity to test and deepen their curricular competencies: professionalism in the specific sector of TOURISM, soft skills, cultural knowledge and language skills. These general objectives are pursued through a mobility experience which consists of an internship abroad of 1 month for 96 STUDENTS attending CLASSES IV and of 3 months for 80 newly graduated of the 8 participating VET Schools (Technical Institutes for Tourism and Hotel and Catering Schools). The project also promotes the exchange and transfer of good practices in VET by relating our VET system with the training and employment system to other European countries and contributes to the consolidation of the ECVET System. ACTIVITY 1. Transversal Activities: management and coordination; Dissemination and exploitation of results; Follow up; 2. Mobility Preparation: Plan of communication and cooperation; Recruitment and selection of participants; preparation of participants; Learning plan definition; 3. Mobility Realization: Internship in the company; Monitoring and tutoring; Project feedback and experience of mobility; Assessment, certification and validation of skills acquired. METHODOLOGY in 4 PHASES 1. MANAGEMENT PLAN AND MONITORING: the project is coordinated by IIS ""Moncada"" in close collaboration with other 16 partners of the Consortium. The Plan is based on the EQAVET quality system and includes specification on: financial arrangements, timing, names of managers / representatives of each organization, responsibilities, roles and tasks, project phases with related milestones, risk management procedures. 2. PLAN OF LEARNING AND EVALUATION: the learning and evaluation plan contains specific references and commitments on transparency and recognition of competences in an ECVET-compatible framework. The documents are: Learning Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The quality of the experience of mobility is controlled through regular evaluation questionnaires filled out by participants, mentors and tutors. 3. PLAN OF COMMUNICATION AND COOPERATION: it provides for the involvement of all participants in the partnership with effective tools and rules to maintain a high level of interest on the project. 4. STRATEGIC PLAN FOR DISSEMINATION AND EXPLOITATION: includes phases and methods to be adopted by all partners to disseminate and exploit the project and its results all over the duration and behond. EXPECTED RESULTS a. The development of highly specific and innovative skills in the tourism and catering sector; b. More competitive and greater employment opportunities in the labor market for the participants; c. The development and innovation of VET systems. IMPACT The project includes a significant impact on the VET Systems through: learning outcomes achievement of participants to mobility; skills acquired from the staff involved in the project; recognition of skills in an ECVET-compatible framework. It represents also an added value and development opportunity for the participating organizations, which will consolidate a new training segment to complete the technical and vocational education and answer the demand of enterprises of high professional skills. LONG-TERM BENEFITS In the long term, thanks to the dissemination tools developed and to the size and importance of the consortium, it is expected to have a multiplier effect both regionally, and at national and EU level and the orientation of public policies on the base of the results of the project, using in addition, as a standard model, all procedures and best practices developed within the Project."

"In the present pool project, individual mobility was implemented by apprentices in the dual system, especially in the craft trades.Background for the project is the comparatively low mobility of young people in the dual, training in the craft so far. It is currently only about five percent of all trainees. In addition, conventional mobility measures for trainees in the craft trades are usually carried out as group measures that are too inflexible for one-on-one or that are not suitable for them because of their specialist, spatial or temporal orientation.The aim of the present pool project was therefore to give the trainees a supplementary opportunity by acquiring individual internships abroad, which could be used flexibly in terms of time and with regard to the destination country, in order to acquire additional skills within the framework of mobility. The offer was open to all apprenticeship trades in the craft trades nationwide. This approach was also supported by the fact that numerous Mobility Counseling Centers of Chambers of Crafts and Chambers of Commerce and Industry (in the case of IHK trainees) acted as ""Regional Support Partners"" in the project. Through a large number of foreign partners, various target countries for the individual internships were offered.As part of the project, 79 trainees - 48% of them female and 52% male - from 26 different dual training occupations completed individual mobility, in a total of 18 target countries. The subject of the internships abroad was regularly the country-specific working methods of the respective occupations in the internship country. The trainees came from a total of eight federal states, which again makes clear the nationwide scope of the approach. The duration of the individual activities averaged three weeks. This manageable time span was on the one hand the highest acceptance among the domestic training companies and on the other hand it already enabled very good learning successes: For example, 77.2% of the participants stated that they had improved their technical and professional skills during their internship abroad. The effects in the field of soft skills are even clearer: 86.1% of the graduates and 82.3% of the apprentices agreed to be able to better adapt to new situations and master them better the internship abroad to work better with people from other cultures.As a result of the project a positive conclusion can be drawn: 94.9% of the participants were ""very satisfied"" or ""more satisfied"" with their Erasmus + stay abroad and about 90% would recommend the institution in which they completed their stay abroad. With regard to the objectives of the Erasmus + program and the long-term effects of the project, it is particularly pleasing that a high proportion of young graduates can imagine working later in other European countries (77.2%, compared to only 5.1% for which the ""not at all"" is foreseeable)."

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The project EVST-mobility aims to open access to job-related internships and work placements abroad in particular for less advantaged vocational trainees in order to improve their chances of placement in the German and European labour market.The initial point was the finding, that especially among young people in rural regions there exist widespread prejudices against leaving the traditional living environment, and that it requires additional efforts to encourage this target group for the participation in trans-national mobility projects. This is particularly true for young people from social disadvantaged groups and with a migration background, who often provide only little international experience before.The beneficiaries undertake their vocational training either in a full-time school program or in dual vocational training. They are 16 to 26 years old and working in professional fields in which international experience is in many cases already seen as a condition for employment, such as in business-management and in the service-sector (hotel and catering). Additionally there is an also increasing demand among vocational trainees from technical-productive trades, the social sector (education and health-care) as from creative professions, like IT- and media-design.By work-related stays abroad they should get the opportunity to develop their intercultural competence, perceived as the ability to act to communicate in a foreign cultural environment efficiently and goal-oriented. In addition to work placements, the project offers the possibility, to promote in particular job-related language skills and to work in training and employment-related so called European Vocational Skills Training projects. The goal of these EVST-projects is, to be able to prove the acquisition of professional skills even if a direct participation in working processes within an internship is restricted or the area of operation does not fully match the beneficiaries' qualifications profile.In order to agree on learning objectives and contents of the internships abroad, the participants receive access to an online database (www.evst-mobility.eu). The goal of the EVST process is to motivate the beneficiaries in a dialogue process for the active participation in the arrangement of their stay abroad in order to increase their responsibility for the learning process and to optimize the subsequent documentation of learning achievements.Cooperation partners are chambers of industry, trade and crafts as well as vocational schools from different regions of Germany and receiving partner-institutions among others in England, France, Ireland, Malta, Poland and Spain.Initially, a total amount of 275 mobility grants were applied for, which later have been reduced to 122 grants.121 mobilities have been realized:116 3 to average 25-week internships abroad for vocational-trainees in the dual system and in full-time training courses and 5 scholarships for so called European Skills Training-projects and intensive professional language learning-courses abroad. The average 25, sometimes up to 52, week work placements are mostly used by graduates of vocational training, who are not taken in an employment after their final examination.The project aims to improve the employability in particular for less-advantaged young people from rural regions, where due to the often extensively limited job offer mobility is an important prerequisite for a successful placement in the labour market.Similarly, this project intends to contribute to the regional and international networking of actors of general and vocational education and training in order to provide a better access to international mobility activities, particularly for young people from social disadvantaged groups. In addition it is intention striven for a promotion of a positive image of Europe in the target groups:More than 80% of the returnees express after their return that they could imagine to live and to work in other European countries in the course of their further career due to the gained experiences within their internships abroad.

Templemore College of Further Education is eager to ensure that its students and staff have the opportunity to participate in the Erasmus+ programme in 2016-2017. Here is a summary of the funding we applied for in this project.VET learner mobilities (35 participants and 3 accompanying persons):- 15 students for 3 weeks to Vitalis, Liepzig, Germany (15 Hair & Beauty students)- 15 students for 3 weeks to Seville, Spain (5 European Studies and 10 mixed sector)- 5 students for 4 weeks to Perpignan France (5 European Studies and 5 mixed sector)Here is a summary of the funding we used in this project.VET learner mobilities (35 participants and 3 accompanying persons):- 27 students for 3 weeks to Tenerife, Spain (mixed sector)We had initially approached both Vitalis and YES, in October 2016, to help us organise work placements around and over the Easter break 2017. Unfortunately neither of these partners had availability at this time of the year. After much discussion with other staff members, this time period was considered optimum for sending students on Erasmus work placement, as it would mean they would only lose out on one week's normal tuition, and but still the Erasmus work placement could be integrated into their PLC course and count towards their mandatory QQI Work Experience module. Yes Consultoria Internacional SL then recommended two Erasmus partners that could help us out, FU International and Tenerife Job Training. We sought funding for an accompanying person with each of the above student mobility flows. We used funding for:- 3 accompanying persons for the 3 week period for monitoring visits. In this Erasmus+ project, we hope to be able to offer valuable experience during the work placements to students across a wide range of sectors, as follows:- to our IT graduates in the areas of technical support in SMEs in the areas of web site design, hardware maintenance and programming- horticulture students have been placed in golf clubs, vineyards, market gardens, olive groves- our Media Studies have gained experience working in local radios stations- our Hair and Beauty graduates will be placed in salons - our childcare students have the possibility to work in childcare facilities - complementary therapy students have been placed in clinics, and hotel spas- our Sports and Rec students have worked in gyms and as personal trainers, and in youth clubs- our Business students have been given both general administration and customer-service roles in local enterprises in office environments- our Tourism students have work at tourist information offices and at local tourist attractions, in customer-facing roles