Good practice for the integration of refugees - RecoVET enables the evaluation of vocational integration programmes

 

The social integration of refugees is currently a highly relevant topic. The war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic are triggering increased refugee flows to Europe. VET offers great potential for the successful integration of refugees into society and the labour market, as it enables integrative cultural, social and economic integration. However, the VET institutions involved also face challenges (e.g. language barriers, social problems, heterogeneous previous education and trauma).

The project RecoVET - Recognition of Good VET practice for refugees, based at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne and conducted by Prof. Dr. Matthias Pilz, Dr. Junmin Li and Ekaterina Schlüter, has just been launched. The University of Bergamo, the University of Innsbruck and the University of Valencia are involved in the project. The co-financing through the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union for the project period 2022 to 2024 totals more than 350,000 €.

The aim of RecoVET is to apply Good practices in the context of vocational integration of refugees. The project develops a concept for the external assessment and recognition of specific quality in refugee integration. It consists, on the one hand, of an Online Training for quality assessors such as accreditation agencies to prepare them for the specific challenges of refugee integration in the VET sector. The second objective is a complementary Quality Recognition Manual and literature to accompany the Online Training. In addition, the development of a practice-oriented Toolbox for the implementation of assessment and recognition is planned.

In this process, the researchers can build on the results of a previous project called GoodVET (GoodVET: About the project). As part of this Erasmus+ project, the Institute for Organization and Learning, Department of Business Education and Human Resource Development, at the University of Innsbruck is involved in the project under the direction of Prof. Dr. Annette Ostendorf. A Team ed by Prof. Pilz and Dr. Li from the Chair of Economic and Social Education at the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences at the University of Cologne had already developed quality indicators for successful VET programmes for refugees. The appropriate preparation of external quality auditors through "RecoVET" leads to a quality assessment and recognition that takes into account the challenges and framework conditions of vocational training measures in refugee integration. The results of a quality audit can thus be used by the practice actors in an enhanced way to improve quality.

The refugees participating in vocational training activities also benefit from the project results, as an external quality audit and recognition increases the quality of the measures. Furthermore, the transparency of quality also has a signalling effect for the labour market. Thus, the project results have a positive impact on the integration of refugees into the labour market and their social inclusion. Due to the EU-wide applicability of the project results, a positive impact on the integration of refugees throughout Europe is expected.