The ENNE project team is happy to announce that the International training course on Quality Assurance System (QAS) was held in Sofia, Bulgaria!

The QAS course was organized by the Bulgarian partner – European Center for Quality Ltd. with the support of all project partners. The training was with total duration of 5 days from 30.05 to 03.06.2022 and was attended by a total of 17 participants from 13 educational institutions from 5 EU countries (Italy, Germany, Bulgaria, Portugal and Belgium).

During each of the five days, participants were engaged in interactive activities aimed at:

• enriching their knowledge on international cooperation in VET; quality in VET mobilities, project preparation and implementation, etc.
• promoting networking, team work and exchange of good practices between participants;
• establishing a good foundation for further international cooperation between participants and their organisations;

The first day of the training was aimed at creating prerequisites for group forming and was devoted to introduction of all participants and their organisations through various ice-breaking sessions and activities.

On the second day participants’ attention was focused on defining quality from A to Z – both in general and in mobility projects. Later participants were split into 3 teams and were asked to describe what are the roles and responsibilities of hosting and sending organisations as well as participants in mobilities and to present the results. Day 2 ended with presentation of the Quality Assurance System (QAS) and a group reflection session devoted to the applicability of QAS.

On day 3, participants were engaged in a World café workshop devoted to the important aspects of VET mobilities. In this session also experts from the ENNE partner organisations took part. Each partner was covering an important topic within their expertise such as “Accreditation and project preparation”, “Interaction with companies and labour market”, etc. and participants were switching tables based on their interests and most pressing questions.

The afternoon session was devoted on the importance of human relations in VET mobilities during which participants were engaged in a discussion about the most important qualities of mentors in VET mobilities.

Day 4 of the training was focused on introduction to Erasmus Quality Standards
for mobility projects in VET – 2021-2027 and in the afternoon, participants were engaged in designing their own quality framework by defining categories for quality assessment, indicators, source of verification. Afterwards each team presented their framework and the logic behind it.

The last day of the QAS international training included a study visit to the National High School in Finance and Business (NHSFB) and an afternoon wrap up session.

The QAS training created great prerequisites for boosting participants’ knowledge and capacity to prepare and implement VET mobility projects as well as for networking and exchange of good practices and know-how between participating educational organisations from the partner countries. Therefore, the QAS training ended with many ideas for further international cooperation between participants and the organisations they were representing as well as many creative plans for common project initiatives