At
present, 20 % of a group of pupils leaves the system with
no qualifications and/or are dropping out of the system.
To remedy this serious problem, the European Council of Lisbon
decided to halve the number of people aged between 18 and
24 who have only completed the first cycle of secondary schooling,
by the year 2010.
The project “A new transparent system of certification
for young people with no qualifications” is part of this
challenge. For the past three years, the project has gathered
teachers and researchers from Luxembourg, France, Germany,
Bulgaria and Portugal. Together they have developed a list
of skills and an assessment methodology, which make it possible
to validate basic skills and competencies acquired formally,
or informally by young people who are having problems with
social and vocational integration.
These young people have problems at school, in their social
life and with money. They suffer from a low self-image
and have great difficulty describing their competencies.
That
is why it is particularly important to help them put into
words
what they know and how they can go about carrying out a
task or finding the answer to an exercise. This work
on explaining
is part and parcel of the assessment method that we propose.
It is essential to strengthen feelings of competency in
these young people and their motivation to learn and
act.
The list constitutes a common-core syllabus to be acquired
before any vocational learning and makes it possible
to assess the following 6 areas of competency:
To facilitate the work of the assessors, each item is matched
to an exercise which illustrates the expected competency.
The assessment list can be matched to a set of on-line
teaching
tools for the teacher. These tools exist in French, German,
Bulgarian and English. They offer teaching programmes,
individualised if necessary, based on many varied exercises
set in everyday
life situations. They can be used directly in any teaching
situation for people with learning or integration difficulties.