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EDGE Project
Start date: Sep 1, 2014, End date: Dec 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The EDGE (Enhancing the Delivery of Guidance and Employability) Project aims to enhance the progression prospects of socio-economically disadvantaged adults in order to promote social inclusion and equality measures. Specifically, the EDGE Project aims to develop innovative approaches (career guidance, learner engagement strategies, self-evaluation tools, e-learning resources) in the provision of employability skills development. Amongst the partners (Ireland, Wales, Portugal, Austria, Greece), these learners comprise both young and mature adults who are early school-leavers, as well immigrants. The opportunity presented by Erasmus+ will enable partners to share best practice, drawn from our considerable collective experience in the delivery of second-chance education for adults and young people. The Project will explore the area of career guidance and how to identify practical learner progression pathways, including the obstacles (both personal and structural) that they must realistically overcome. There are four practical dimensions to the EDGE Project: (1) A comparative examination of the unemployment and activation contexts within the partner countries, each of which has experienced the global economic downturn in different ways. (2) The sharing of best practice with regard to the ways in which our respective organisations have responded to meet the skill needs of vulnerable adults and young people (e.g. access, engagement, retention, career guidance and employability provision). (3) An examination of the potential of the Mozilla ‘Open Badges’ system. This system, which is transferable, trackable and evidence-based, allows the learner to cumulatively gain formal recognition and credits for the skills (non-formal & informal) they learn. (Source: http://www.openbadges.org/). The intention is that each partner will trial the Open Badges system with a sample group of learners and evaluate its effectiveness and potential as a skills validation mechanism. (4) The partnership will develop an e-portfolio template as a dynamic and interactive Personal Progression Planning tool. The e-portfolio will record evidence and illustrate learning gained across modules, programs or different institutions. It will act as a toolkit to promote self-managed learning and career planning in a continuous developmental process and support the planning and delivery of service in a way that is learner-centred, systematic and effective. It is expected that the results and conclusions from the EDGE Project will be widely disseminated, through a variety of media, at local, national and international levels. It is envisaged that these results will also have positive reputational effects for our organisations and their associated networks and will have real longer term significance (post funding) in terms of how adult education providers can address the unemployment problem. Furthermore, practical ideas for future cooperation and development will have been identified. Finally, our proposal is informed by the European Employment Strategy 2020, which is a strategy to support employment, productivity and social cohesion in Europe. This Strategy demands that member states develop more effective systems to integrate young people and vulnerable groups into the labour market in the promotion of equality and social inclusion.
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