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Co-ordination and integration of higher education and the labour market around the South Baltic Sea (COHAB)
Start date: Jun 30, 2011, End date: Jun 29, 2014 PROJECT  FINISHED 

It has been recognized by the project partners that the interregional labour market mobility is not very well-functioning in the South Baltic Sea region. Bottleneck situations in the area requiring qualified labour from other countries have not really improved the labour market mobility and the project partners believe that a project is needed in order to establish the barriers of this lacking mobility and to do something about this situation. The project partners have established that the main barriers that need to be addressed include ignorance of each other’s local culture in education and labour market, educational recognition and lack of strong educational links. The project will focus on two professions in the public sector and founded in a higher education institution participating in the project. The aims of the project are to accumulate data on the labour market in order to identify common barriers, to make the selected educations/professions well known and transparent, to increase staff mobility, to increase student mobility and to increase staff and student competencies in order to equip them for cross-border mobility. In order for the labour market to become mobile, it is the belief of the project partners that this process has to start with educational cooperation. Through study visits, cooperative work with courses or attendance in courses and summer school, staff and students will be introduced to and become familiar with the cultures of the South Baltic region; the labour market, the job opportunities, the educations and educational structures, the people and the local traditions and values. The staff and students will become ambassadors for the interregional mobility and the result will be that it will widen like rings in water ensuring that the project is firmly rooted in the partnership organisations and with other organisations.The project has a clear cross-border impact and a long term perspective. Through parallel teaching, an essential teaching approach in the project, it will be possible to solve logistic barriers and for the project partners to continue to cooperate after the end of the project period. The virtual education is sustainable in thinly populated areas like in the South Baltic Region. In the short term staff and students in the educations involved will become mobile, and in the long term mobility will become a more natural option for other students as well as the graduates and will spread to the labour market. The project will be a good practice example that will spread to other professions Achievements: The three year long project COHAB (Co-ordination and integration of higher education and the labour market around the South Baltic Sea). As the project title suggest the project have worked on and implemented a student process consisting of an preliminary investigation phase looking at barriers for mobility and integration, a planning phase in which the project staff designed and planned the student activities. As part of this design and planning phase the staff gained insight into the different educational structures in Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Poland and Germany by study visits to the partner countries. This helped the staff getting insight to specific conditions in the countries as well as education specific elements that needed to be addressed in the student activities in the coming project phase. The Student phase was split in two equal ties - one for the teacher training students - and one for the nursing students. The student phase was kicked-off with a two week long summer school where all 35 students met each other for the first time. The summer school that took place in Klaipeda had for the teacher training part its main focus on three main pillars: A) Professional skills & mobility, B) Interregional virtual communication and, C) Culture & society. For the nursing tie of the summer school the main focus were upon: Module 1 - Nursing patients with chronic diseases & Module 2 - Marginalized patients / Citizens and groups. These main thematic pillars were continued and functioned as the basis for the virtual courses. The summer school thus functioned as first driver for the students professional qualifications - however, the summer school also resulted in the formation of sort of group identity among the students. The fact that they were together for two weeks really were beneficial for the latter activities taking place in the project - not least the fact that courses were taught across large geographical distances through the virtual teaching equipment. The group identity of the students were only deepened during the student study visits that took place in all partner countries. Although the overall goal of the visits were increased knowledge of the educational and health care systems in the South Baltic region, the visits only increased the interconnectedness of the students.From the beginning the project set out to test if it would be possible to apply innovative technologies in higher education and conduct teaching across borders. By the end of the project initial idea has been confirmed - it is possible to create joint cross-border courses in higher education. However, this has not been achieved without challenges, both of technological, didactical and cultural character. As the project title suggest the project have had its focus on the integration of higher education and the labour market. During the course of the project the main focus has been on integrating the educations in order to make two joint courses. The labour market dimension of the project has been in focus through the study visits where students and staff have visited school, centres of higher education, hospitals as well health care clinics. One of the most critical factors for the project have been the student evaluations of the project and their own experienced benefit of being part of such a project. Almost all participating students indicated that they - if they had the opportunity would participate in similar projects. The best response in the eyes of the project partners was that 83% of the students answered that their participation in the project had increased their likelihood of pursuing an international career.

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Details

  • 78.8%   1 155 534,10
  • 2007 - 2013 South Baltic (PL-SE-DK-LT-DE)
  • Project on KEEP Platform
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6 Partners Participants