#2 - April 2009 Welcome The FamCompass newsletter informs you about the FamCompass project, funded by the European Commission in the Lifelong Learning Program Grundtvig I. The aim of this project is to validate 'family competences', competences men and woman have acquired in the informal settings of family life. We hope you will find the outcomes of our project useful and we invite you to give us your feedback as we further develop it.
Content
1. FamCompass
2. Final testing running
3. FamCompass conference & seminar: 23-24 October 2009 in Brussels
4. Kompetent durch Familienarbeit?
5. LLL- and APL-news from participating countries
6. Project website
1. FamCompass
The FamCompass project, funded by the European Commission in the Lifelong Learning Program Grundtvig I, develops an instrument, the Family Competences Portfolio, to validate 'family competences', competences men and woman have acquired in the informal settings of family life, in their roles as educators, homemakers and care workers. We believe that a solid and objective recognition of these competences will be of growing importance in an ageing society.
The project was launched in November 2007 and runs until the end of October 2009.
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2. Final testing running
In 2008 we developed a first draft of the instrument. We tested it with 88 persons in seven EU-countries. Based on the feedback of users and institutes we have developed a 2nd draft which is now being tested. The next step is to lay out a user friendly web based tool that will be implemented on our website. This will allow learners and institutes to access the tool via Internet, after they received an access code.
Are you interested in testing the final version of this tool? Don't hesitate to contact us at
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.
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3. FamCompass conference & seminar: 23-24 October 2009 in Brussels
The results of our project and a demo of the tool will be presented during a concluding conference in Brussels on Friday 23rd October and an expert seminar on Saturday 24th October, both in Brussels. The Committee of Regions of the European Parliament is our host. The main goal of these meetings is to convince both representatives of the educational system and of the labor market of the importance of the acknowledgment of family related learning and to motivate them to use the FamCompass to assess and validate these competences.
As soon as the program is final we will publish it on the project website.Subscribers to this newsletter will receive an invitation.
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4. Kompetent durch Familienarbeit?
Barbara Thiessen and Lucia Schuhegger of the Deutsches Jugendinstitut published an article in the Journal “Weiterbildung” (Further Education), 2009, April/May, p 14-16.
You can find a copy on our project website in the section 'About the project'.
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5. LLL- and APL-news from participating countries
'Formell oder informell: Gelernt ist gelernt!'
The importance of competences obtained in non formal learning is the object of research and debate in Germany today. The well known 'Forschungsinstitut Betriebliche Bildung' (f-bb), the research institute for vocational education and training in Nürnberg, edits its Newsletter January 2009 on the subject of assessment and validation of informal competencies. In one of its recent studies the institute stresses the importance of the development of solid and widely acknowledged instruments to assess and validate this type of knowledge and competences. The authors make critical comments on the strong diploma and certificate orientation of the German educational system, that is much more stringent than most of its neighbour countries.
You can read the newsletter and order the study from the institute's website: www.f-bb.de. National qualifications frameworks apply European Qualifications Framework (EQF)
EU Member States are currently working to define national qualifications levels in terms of learning outcomes – what a learner knows, understands and is able to do – in order to link them to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). The EQF is an EU-wide tool to make qualifications more readable and comparable across Europe. - Deutscher Qualifikationsrahmen (DQR)
Germany has just presented a proposal for a national qualifications framework as the result of a co-operation between federal and Länder authorities which also involved representatives from the education sector, social partners and other experts.
The proposal for a German qualifications framework is available at: http://www.deutscherqualifikationsrahmen.de [in German] - Vlaamse kwalificatiestructuur (VKS)
In Belgium the 'national' framework(s) are developed by the Communities. In March the Educational Committee of the Flemish Parliament discussed and approved a Flemish adaptation of the EQF. It will be used in the development of educational programs, APL-procedures, the integration of informal learning in the labor market etc.
On 11th May 2009 the Departments of Education and Labor offer an information session on the VKS.
You can find more information on the VKS and the program of the conference on http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/inschrijvingen/vks [in Dutch] Back to menu
6. Project website: www.famcompass.eu
The project website gives you all the details of the work in progress. Stakeholders and institutes participating in the testing of the FamCompass have access to the draft versions of the instrument.
Do you find the development of the FamCompass of great use for your organisation? Are you interested in giving feedback to the FamCompass? Don't hesitate to contact us so we can give you access to the stakeholder section.
The FamCompass Team www.famcompass.eu
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FamCompass Newsletter # 2 April 2009 – Slovak version (