Tag Archives: early leaving

Briefing paper – Community lifelong learning centres

Early leaving News Policy Debates - 17th September 2019

The Lifelong Learning Platform is happy to share the results of the Policy Forum held in may with Cedefop. Following the many valuable inputs that the two organisations received, we have come up with a revised Briefing Paper on the potential of Community Lifelong Learning Centres as a gateway to multidisciplinary support teams.

The paper explores the cross-sector approach and one-stop-shops as tools to prevent early leaving from education and training. It also suggests recommendations and next steps to policy-makers, and especially advocates for:

  • CLLCs as welcoming, non-threatening education environment, centred around the learner’s needs, and typically focused on non-formal education.
  • The need to create an assertive outreach approach that is able to attract the wider community to the CLLCs where they can engage with others and also receive access to further specialized services and support.
  • The importance of trans-sectoral cooperation (e.g. between different ministries – education, culture, defence, employment and interior affairs, agencies, NGOs and ECEC providers), capacity building at the local level in impoverished areas, and the need to ensure quality transitions (e.g. from education to work) to avoid educational dead ends and decrease early leaving from education and training.
  • 30% of NEETs are short-term unemployed and improving basic skills, decreasing early leaving, and providing apprenticeships could help solve this problem. However, apprenticeships should be fair and of high quality to deliver on the promises.
  • The resurrection of VET as a valid, first-choice pathway (the excellence dimension of VET), with an emphasis on providing quality education, is key to prevent and counter early leaving.

Read the paper here

LLLP-Cedefop Policy Forum on Community Lifelong Learning Centres

Early leaving News - 31st May 2019

On 29 May Cedefop and LLLP in cooperation with the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU organised the policy forum “What role for Community Lifelong Learning Centres: the potential of one-stop-shops for preventing youth at risk from disconnecting”.

Building on the LLLP briefing paper Community Lifelong Learning Centres a gateway to multidisciplinary support teams and with participation from LLLP members, the event focused on how such centres, based in schools or other spaces in the local community, can meet individuals’ multiple  and complex needs (e.g. education, health, psychological) by bringing the work of different services and sectors together in one location. The need for a conducive policy framework – promoting cross-sector cooperation and joint service delivery – was highlighted by several speakers as well as the need to back that framework up with a generous integrated funding model. This holistic approach was likewise reflected in discussions on education specifically with many speakers and participants stressing the importance of parity of esteem between different learning pathways – formal and non-formal, vocational and academic – and the possibility to move smoothly between them in order to prevent early leaving from education or training. In that respect, the cost of “non-education”, i.e. not investing in high-quality and flexible education systems, was also underlined by the representative of the upcoming Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU.

A number of resources were presented at the forum, including the new edition of the Cedefop VET toolkit for tacking early leaving.

What role for community lifelong learning centres? The potential of one-stop shop for preventing youth at risk from disconnecting

Events News - 30th April 2019

Around 90 key European and national stakeholders and social partners representing leading EU and national institutions will be gathered in Brussels during the Cedefop-LLLPlatform Policy Forum to explore the potential of Community lifelong learning centres (CLLC) as one-stop shops for preventing young people at risk and early-school leavers from disconnecting. The event will be hosted by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union in its permanent representation to the EU in Brussels.

During the event, Cedefop will launch the new edition, currently under development, of its web platform VET toolkit for tackling early leaving assisting policy makers and VET providers in taking action towards a comprehensive approach to tackling early leaving from education and training.

The Lifelong Learning Platform and the Educational Disadvantage Centre, Institute of Education, Dublin City University will present their joint briefing paper on “Implementing a holistic approach to lifelong learning: Community Lifelong Learning Centres as a gateway to multidisciplinary support teams”.

Representatives from good practices in using integrated service delivery (one-stop shops, case management and multi-skilled teams) in different settings will present their approach and benefits for establishing CLLCs in disadvantaged areas across Europe. Viewing community lifelong learning centres as a gateway to multidisciplinary teams based services for those with complex needs, envisages a colocation between these centres and the teams, as part of a one stop shop.

A high-level panel with key national and EU stakeholders is invited to reflect on thepost-2020 EU and national agendas on tackling early leaving from education and training and their contribution to raising citizens’ skills and improving youth social inclusion and labour market integration.

The forum will address some key issues:

  • What is the stocktaking of current strategies and programmes to tackle early leaving from education and training?
  • Is early leaving from education and training still a challenge in Europe? Why?
  • What challenges are currently faced by Member States in the implementation of their policies to tackle early leaving from education and training? What new challenges lie ahead?
  • What are the ongoing discussions on the post-2020 strategies and programmes to tackle early leaving from education and training at EU and national levels to raise citizens’ low skills, tackle youth unemployment and increase social inclusion?
  • What role can community lifelong learning centres have in EU and national strategies to support the social inclusion and labour market integration of youth at risk?

For the answers to these – and many more – questions, stay tuned on Cedefop and LLLP social media. No streaming, but live tweeting of the event is assured!

Please visit the event websitefor further information.