Background

Given the current difficult economic situation in Europe and the associated complex and challenging environment for young professionals, the project will improve the apprenticeship in retail sector. Thereby, the greatest possible fit of vocational education of young people in the field of key competencies to the current requirements of the job market will be sought by taking place an adequate preparation and support regarding the personal and social skills. The innovation transfer project is based on the already completed research project “SeSoko-fit”, which was developed for the eighth grade of secondary schools. Here, four teaching-learning arrangements (LLA) were developed, tested and evaluated to promote personal and social skills at grade eight (team competencies, criticism, time management, self-evaluation of ability). The present project is a development in the European context. In a first step, the four teaching-learning arrangements will be translated from German into English. In addition to that, the general organization of the project and the coordination about the procedure will take place. In the initial phase of the project, there will be a kick-off meeting in London, where all organizational things will be discussed. Afterwards, there will be interviews (with open questions) in order to identify the specific needs of each country and within each social partner in regard to the four teaching-learning arrangements. Thus, the development and adaptation of the teaching-learning arrangements to the new target group (students work in retail or in the "retail sector") and country specific feature can be done. The next step involves the adjustment of the teaching-learning arrangements based on the identified national and international needs of potential employers in the retail industry. Accordingly, the four teaching-learning arrangements will be adapted on supranational level and then translated into local languages. At the same time a nationally specific fine-tuning is possible. In a further step, the implementation and evaluation in pilot facilities (vocational schools, retail sector) of the partner countries will take place. It is planned to implement the teaching-learning arrangements at least at three different institutions in each country. Therefore, the partners provide the necessary materials and take over the questioning of teachers and students. Only then, an optimization can be conducted. The final step involves the analysis of the evaluation and the optimization of the results at national and international level. In addition to that, it includes the dissemination of the program by electronic media as well as a printed publication.