No One Stays Behind! (NSB) is an Erasmus+ funded project with a duration of 24 months(January 2022 – August 2024), coordinated by Escola Profissional Amar Terra Verde (EPATV), a Portuguese vocational school experienced in working with learners coming from socio-economic disadvantaged backgrounds.
NSB project was designed considering the significant impact of the global pandemic on education systems around the world and on learners’ learning opportunities, especially those coming from the above-mentioned backgrounds, with learning difficulties and losses, some of who with prior history of school absences caused by lack of interest and/or motivation, ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity. Those learners (including migrants) usually demonstrate behaviours that ultimately lead them to dropping out of school or to be reluctant towards the learning process and, as such, need to be motivated to learn and to develop competences, skills and attitudes that foster their social inclusion and professional success.
Main objectives of the project
In general, NSB aims to develop innovative and practical digital tools based on the STEM/STEAM2 methodology, mostly of non-formal nature, which will allow the process of transferring knowledge and the acquisition of essential learning to be carried out successfully. Simultaneously, it also aims to recognise the skills of VET leaners (acquired through non-formal and informal learning), reduce the number of NEETs and to improve digital and pedagogical skills of VET teachers and trainers so that they can be promoters and agents of change with young people and surrounding community.
As such, the main objectives of NSB project are to:
- Determine the starting point and motivation of young VET learners based on the results from a self-assessment questionnaire to be available on a digital app developed in the project;
- Increase pedagogical, social and digital training of VET teachers/trainers, defining the role of Mentor, proposing training activities and assessing the minimum skills required to participate on a mentorship programme through an “practical, easy to read and operational” e-book;
- Support mentors by presenting the steps to take for the implementation of Summer School Workshops, defining the functional structure of the workshops to be implemented, the activities (including virtual and scientific experiments) to be carried out based on successful practical cases and their respective assessment;
- Evaluate and improve the tools and methodologies developed in the project through the creation of a digital platform aimed to measure their effectiveness and usability based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis or the results.
In order to achieve these objectives, NSB partners will work collaboratively in the development of the following results:
- An app for android and IOS devices with contents that promote motivation on learners and allow for a self- assessment focused on skills needs (which quantitative and qualitative results will show what workshops learners must attend to in order to develop those skills);
- An e-book entitled “The Mentor’s Role in… 1 minute!”, with guidelines and an online database for a general assessment and immediate results on the role, responsibilities, profile and added value of a Mentor on learners’ motivation and learning recovery;
- A digital guide entitled “Summer School… Implementation and setting manual”, containing virtual scientific experiments, practical case studies using digital platforms (which applicability is proven by VET educators), activities and their evaluation;
- A platform for managing the assessment of the project’s results’ usability, which results will be analysed in a quantitative and qualitative way and presented to Ministries of Education, associations and other VET related institutions.
These results are expected to improve teachers’/trainers’ digital competences (which will facilitate the planning and management of the training process), improve the learning process for learners (based on non-formal and informal practices), foster the psychological wellbeing of the entire school staff and community, improve stakeholders’ and employers’ satisfaction, decrease the rate ofschool dropouts and increase academic success, leading to a higher level of attractiveness of VET.
