A meeting held in Malta to discuss employability, engagement and empowerment of disadvantaged young people has welcomed input from Forth Valley College’s Access and Progression Department.
Held in the town of Rabat between 23-27 January, the ‘3Es Youths in VET’ event was attended by representatives of five European college partners including: Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology (who hosted the event), Havering College for Further and Higher Education (England), Friesland College (Holland), Akademie fur berufliche Bildung gGmbH (Germany) as well as FVC.
3Es is a project specifically targeting the engagement and development of the full potential of students with fewer opportunities. It lists strengthening the learning support offered to young people coming from all backgrounds, cultures, interests and abilities within a vocational college, among its aims. The activities, programmes and curricula developed through the project will revolve around their needs.
Representing FVC at the seminar were Ruth Davis, Stewart Ritchie and Alan Ritchie from the Department of Access and Progression. They delivered a cutting edge full day workshop delivered in two parts: firstly on ‘Attitudes and Values to Working with Vulnerable Youths’ and secondly ‘How Lecturers Take Care of their Own Mental Well-being’.
Alan, a Curriculum Manager in the Department of Access and Progression, said:
“We were delighted to be invited to participate in this seminar and bring our expertise to the table. The invitation came about as a result of a visit to Forth Valley College by a Dutch delegation of educationalists about 18 months ago.”
Lecturer Ruth, said:
“We were asked to provide a workshop for a full day of the seminar and they loved it. We showed a film produced by David Aitken in the Comms and Marketing Department which showed what our values and beliefs are and focussed on the learner journey. This prompted discussion on what students need from us and what they thought we – as lecturers - should be providing them with.”
Fellow lecturer Stewart, said:
“It transpired that our thoughts and conclusions correlated very well with our colleagues from other colleges and this allowed us to explore the challenges that we all face and to share best practise amongst the group. We are now looking forward to the next training session which will be held in Havering in Essex.”
Alan, added:
“We have all certainly benefited from the event and that means our students will benefit as well. We also shared some of our expertise with other professionals and we understand this has already been implemented in one or two of the colleges present. It is a very worthwhile project to be involved in and we can’t wait to build stronger links within this excellent European learning community.”