employability

January 15th 2021 signals the official starting date of the news Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education project “Promoting the employability and entrepreneurship of Higher Education graduates through innovative ways in the Philippines”, also known as PATHWAY.

Partners have been actively at work behind the scenes to help the project get a strong start when it has its public launch on February 23^rd. This work has included several online meetings, first with the new project officer in a bilateral meeting organized in the framework of the Erasmus+ Grantholders’ Meeting, on January 28^th, and then during a pre-Kick-off Meeting with the project managers from each partner institution on February 2^nd.

The V2WORK project, coordinated by the University of Alicante, has created a new network to further develop the close cooperation between V2WORK project partners, and to extend its positive impact to other Vietnamese Higher Education Institutions (HEIs): the Vietnam Employability and Entrepreneurship Support Network or VEES-Net.

VEES - NET has a vision to be a sustainable network of Vietnamese HEIs to support career services with a view to promoting greater employability and developing a spirit and culture of entrepreneurship among HEIs. Its mission is to increase the employability and the entrepreneurship efforts of HEI students and graduates, enabling higher levels of success and professional achievement, and to promote the development and affirmation of HEI career services as an essential structure and of the greatest importance in fulfilling the institution's mission to train and qualify young people for qualified professional activities that generate social and economic development.

From June 30^th to July 3^rd, the V2WORK project held a Sustainable Network Workshop hosted by the University of Danang, with participation of the EU partners online. Like so many others, V2WORK has had to adapt to the new limitations of working in a Covid-19 world. With international travel restrictions in place, and partners in Europe working from home, the project has designed a blended-format workshop, with the Vietnamese partners all gathered in Danang to facilitate discussions and joint working sessions, and the European partners participating through the videoconferencing platform Livestorm. The objective of the workshop was to establish a collaborative environment in which the V2WORK partners can work together to define and create a network that will support future collaboration between Vietnamese universities regarding student and graduate employability and entrepreneurship. In order to adapt to the time difference between Vietnam and Europe, the workshop was structured so has to have online sessions in the afternoons (in Vietnam), and group working sessions in the mornings between the Vietnamese partners.

On January 23rd & 24th, 2020, the Erasmus+ project REACH "Reinforcing Access to Cross Border Employment at Palestinian Higher Education Institutions" held its Kick-off Meeting at the University of Ljubjlana in Slovenia. REACH aims to enhance the capacity of Palestinian HEIs in promoting cross border employability of graduates, providing them with the capabilities for effective cross border working so that they can develop their potential and also participate actively in sustainable economic development in Palestine.

The V2WORK project organized a National Conference on Graduate Employment and Entrepreneurship at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities (USSH) in Ho Chi Minh City on October 30^th and 31^st, 2019. It brought together over 100 participants including students, university professors and managers, as well as employers and successful entrepreneurs from the Ho Chi Minh City area and beyond. The objective of the National Conference was to stimulate dialogue and debate at the national level with regards to the current environments of employment and entrepreneurship in Vietnam for students and graduates.

From 12th March to 15th March 2019, a delegation of the International Project Management Office (OGPI), together with representatives from Student Support Center of the University of Alicante, participated in the 1st PACES Workshop on Employability of Higher Education Graduates with Special Needs and the PACES Mid-Project Management Meeting in the city of Cairo (Egypt).

During the event, they joined colleagues from 4 universities from Morocco, 4 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) from  Egypt, 1 from Slovenia, 1 from Greece and 1 from United Kingdom. It  was a very productive opportunity to share expertise on accessibility to Higher Education, work with student with disabilities and discuss issues linked to international project management strategies within the sector of Higher Education. Partners also reached important agreements to orientate the implementation of future activities in the project, which comprise the creating of Volunteer Support Scheme at partners institutions lead by the University of Alicante.

The V2WORK project, coordinated by the University of Alicante, held its second training of trainers module at the Industrial University of Vinh, in Vinh City, Vietnam. The module, for Career Centre staff from eight universities in Vietnam, was delivered by staff from the University of Alicante and the University of Coimbra from October 16^th to 18^th.

Centred on the Labour Market and the global economy, and the identification of trends on employability for graduates, the training module aimed at:

• Offering knowledge on methodologies and tools for the analysis of labour markets.
• Identifying different strategies for university observatories to improve the career centres’ ability to prepare students and graduates for the labour market.
• Identifying ways to use the labour observatories’ outputs to assess the universities in terms of employability of their students and graduates.

Over 30 participants actively engaged in the first V2WORK training module for university Career Centre staff which took place from July 2nd to 4th, 2018, at Nha Trang University in Vietnam. 

The module was centred on how and why Career Centres should engage with their internal and external stakeholders, and who these could be. The specific objectives included:
•    To understand the importance of engaging with stakeholders and the tools to help do so.
•    To identify how a Career Centre can build and develop networks and relationships with internal and external stakeholders, including students, graduates, academics, higher management, employers, employment agencies and associations, business angels, policy makers etc.
•    To examine the possibilities of cooperation at national and international levels

The University of Alicante has welcomed today the partners of the V2WORK project in its Campus of San Vicente del Raspeig for the Kick off Meeting of 'Strengthening the Vietnamese Higher Educatin System to Improve Graduates Employability and Entrepreneurship Skills'  (V2WORK ), a project coordinated by the University of Alicante and co-funded by the European Commission within the framework of the Erasmus + program. 

The V2WORK project objective is to strengthen the capabilities of the higher education system of Vietnam to improve the employability and entrepreneurship skills of its students and graduates, and strengthen its relations with the labor market.