The Go&Learn initiative
G&L Idea
Every company is excellent in something: products, marketing, technology, work processes, HR, management, etc.
Go&Learn is a training initiative aimed to valorize the company excellence, let it known to territory were it operates, foster the company's training role. All that, involving companies inside guidance and adjournement training/educationl paths organized by universities, schools, VET centres with short training units carried out inside the companies.
The Go&Learn Agency present in the various territories contact companies proposing them to be involved in the initiative, planning with those interested the study visits (one economic discovery/guidance seminar plus one or more thematic seminars) they are willing to host. The commited companies are then included in the Go&Learn catalogue, as training companies which supply local or international study visits depending on their will.
During a seminar, combined with the visit to the company premises, the company staff illustrates to the guests the following subjects:
- products and markets
- organization and workprocesses
- how safety policies are adopted
- how quality systems apply
- how they hire new staff
moreover, if the study visit is a thematic seminar, there will be an in depth presentation of the specific theme choosen by the company.
Every training company signs with the Go&Learn Agency an agreement to host at least four visitng groups per year, since the initiative aims to be a constant opportunity for the training bodies to include such study visits in their training activities. Every six months the Go&Learn agency contacts the company to set up two new date for the nex semester. If a seminar can't be done for any reason, a new date is set.
The target groups is wide, depending on the training provider including the seminar in its own courses. Thus students of any kind, unemplyed or emplyed people, entrepreneurs, teachers and trainers can use the seminars proposed in the catalogue. The company is acknowledged by the training provider organising the seminar about the characteristics of the visiting group.
The seminars can be "local", if the visiting group comes from the sorrounding territory, or "interregional/international" if the group comes from other regions/countries.
The Go&Learn initiative relies on:
- a local management body, which guarantees the management, update and implementation of the catalogues
- a network of certified training companies which gurantee the hosting of training groups
- a network of training providers which gvuarantee the visits management
- a network of stakeholders, promoters, patrocinators, sponsors which help to identify the companies and disseminate the initiative in the territory
G&L Rationale
The mobility of students and workers is one of the major concerns of the European Union since the Copenhagen declaration, and it is again the strategic objective 1 of the “ET 2020” framework as well as the strategic objective 2 of the last Council recommendation1 (2. Making LLL and mobility a reality – 2.2 Developing a strategic approach to the internationalization of I-Vet and C-Vet and promoting internation mobility).
Vocational education and training has a key role in supporting the aims of the Europe 2020 strategy; this strategy makes clear that it’s fundamental to encourage more workplace learning experiences, a closer collaboration and partnerships between public services, education and training providers and employers, at several levels and a greater validation of of skills and competences acquired in non-formal contexts. Furthermore, the UE Employment Committee declared that the levels of mobility remain low within the EU labour force due to several factors, such as the absence of a standard recognition of informal skills, a lack of information on mobility opportunities and no previous experiences of mobility (i.e. during a VET path).
In the crossborder development programs, the enhancement of mobility of teachers, students and workers is always one of the relevant objectives. Despite the great attention paid by the Commission, a good result in EU mobility has been reached in the ERASMUS (high education students) but for all the other target groups (VET, apprentices, secondary school, workers and enterpreneurs) the mobility levels reached until now are far from those expected .
Among the many reasons causing difficulties to the mobility programs to be effective and sustainable, we believe that three of the main are the low level of mutual interest in and understanding of a neighbouring country’s economic fabric and history, the inadequate support given to education and training providers (most of which don’t have transnational mobility as a standard part of their curricula) in terms of reliable foreign partners able to guarantee quality in exchange activities and original learning proposals, eventually the low level of information on all the opportunities related to mobility both for workers and students.
Also, education and VET National systems are finding it increasingly difficult, for a variety of reasons, to update curricula, laboratories and technologies, while for study purposes companies themselves can provide a broad, state-of-the-art, detailed view of local products and services, organization and technology, culture and experience.
G&L Concept development
The concept of G&L has been developed with reference to: the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region experiences in the frame of apprentice training where a catalogue of seminars in company is currently under development (Apprendistato.fvg.it); the “format” of industrial tourism visits implemented in the province of Udine by the Assindustria association (The heart of manifacturing: visits to te companies of excellence in the territory); the ideas emerged within the “EBCIL” Leonardo da Vinci learning partnership between chambers of commerce and training bodies working on cross-border mobility actions, which led to this project. Further implementation followed the Go&Learnet project, aimed to experiment the format with teacher and trainers.
