This unprecedented crisis needs an unprecedented answer. One that will serve us today and for many years to come. Today, the European Commission calls on EU Member States to invest in skills” said Margaritis Schinas, Vice-President for Promoting the European Way of Life.

Skills became fundamental for the digital transition and the green economy to develop in these next years, a key factor that will help us recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

In this framework is necessary, more than ever, to restart and to focus on actions that contribute to foster transversal skills needed and requested on the labour market, such as: teamwork, digital competences, communication, creativity, working in multicultural environment, autonomy, responsability, leadership, problem solving, ecc.

It is in this context that the European Skills Agenda for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience was created and presented in July 2020, an agenda made out of 12 points that sets ambitious objectives for skilling to be achieved within the next 5 years.

The 12 actions, that will allow us to train new skills and to improve existing skills, placing them at the heart of the EU policy agenda, are the following:

  1. A Pact for Skills
  2. Strengthening skills intelligence
  3. EU support for strategic national upskilling action
  4. Proposal for a Council Recommendation on Vocational Education and Training for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience
  5. Rolling out the European universities initiative and upskilling scientists
  6. Skills to support the green and digital transitions
  7. Increasing STEM graduates and fostering entrepreneurial and transversal skills
  8. Skills for Life
  9. Initiative on Individual Learning Accounts
  10. A European approach to micro-credentials
  11.  New Europass Platform
  12. Improving the enabling framework to unlock Member States’ and private investments in skills

This actions are foreseen to create 540 million training activities for adults by 2025, including 60 million for low-qualified adults, and 40 million for unemployed people. The number of adults with basic digital skills should increase to 230 million. By reaching these stakeholders the European Commission aims to  ensure that the right to training and lifelong learning becomes a reality all across Europe, from cities to remote and rural areas, to the benefit of everyone.

It is within this framework that the new Europass Platform was launched and the Proposal for a Council Recommendation on vocational education and training was adopted by the European Commission.

Next step on the list is the Pact for Skills, foreseen to be launch in November 2020. The other points  will be brought forward in the coming months.

For further information on the European Skills Agenda visit the European Commission website.

On January 24th and 25th 2024, ESMOVIA hosted the fourth Transnational Meeting in Valencia, Spain with our fellow European partners, Universidad Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (IT), the University of Applied Labor Studies of the Federal Employment Agency HdBA (DE), and the Institute of Research and Information on Volunteering IRIV (FR). This meeting forms a part of our KA2 Erasmus European project EMoCC – European Mobility for Career Counseling.

Our EMoCC project aims at promoting European job mobility by providing adequate training to Career Counselors in the form of 2 different massive open online courses (MOOC). Our prestigious team is multi-disciplinary, and our accumulated knowledge and expertise is resulting in a very high value product being created.

In this transnational meeting, we brought together the results and feedback of the first two project results, and embedded it into the MOOC on European mobility creation, to make it stronger and even more aligned with our future course users. We shared our progress on the dissemination of our project and continued to commit ourselves to further share the message, to reach as many potential users as possible. Through creative processes, shared discussions, and personal debates, partners have decided on the content of this second MOOC and the workflow and strategy, something we are proud to announce as we step into this last phase. We want our product to reach as many eyes as possible!

Want to know more about EMoCC?

The following results are foreseen in the project:

Project Result 1 – AtoM and WoMSA: We started with a qualitative study “AToM, Attitude Toward Moving,” which aimed to understand personal attitude and motivation towards mobility, through the means of individual interviews and focus groups. This information was then used to design a quantitative study, “WoMSA, Work Mobility Skills and Attitude Scale,” a questionnaire dispatched for individuals and counselors to better understand themselves within competences, motivation, and satisfaction inside a mobility experience. This questionnaire is a huge added value of this project, as it is a useful tool to implement in many different professional sectors across counseling and teaching. This phase was led by Universidad Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.
To carry out WoMSA questionnaire go to www.emocc.eu/womsa

Project Result 2 – MOCC on Career Counseling: We created the first MOOC, massive open online course, a 30-hour training, composed of many different media elements, to upskill the abilities of counselors. Each partner contributed their expertise within the topics. A continued testing phase is being carried out by users from all countries. This phase was led by the University of Applied Labor Studies of the Federal Employment Agency, HdBA.
To enroll in the “MOOC in Career Counseling” go to https://app.emocc.eu/

Project Result 3 – MOOC on European Mobility: We are excited to announce that we are currently starting the last phase of the project, our second MOOC. A 30-hour training, composed of different media elements, training already qualified counselors, to become European mobility experts, to help inspire increased movement. We are now in the creation stage. This phase is being led by ESMOVIA.