News
Kick-off workshop in Konstanz
On 17-18 of February 2020, the University of Konstanz hosted the first kick-off project workshop of the Erasmus+ project PAGOSTE. The project teams from Ukraine and three EU countries (Germany, Austria, Italy) spent two days intensively working on the project issues. Generally, 36 participants took part in this event. The aim of the workshop was, firstly, to meet all project consortium in person and, secondly, to discuss the implementation of the first working package "Analysis of governance of vocational teacher education", project management mechanisms and communication, quality assurance and sustainability of results.
Within the workshop, the participants also visited a vocational school centre (Berufsschulzentrum) in Radofzell, which was very important for the project objectives, since the goal of PAGOSTE is to build a network among different stakeholders involved into vocational teacher education (VTE), in particular vocational schools and universities, and, therefore, to improve the governance mechanisms of teacher training for vocational education in Ukraine. After the presentation about the VET in Germany and work of the vocational school center, which was held by the vocational school director Norbert Opferkuch, the guests actively discussed and put numerous questions about mechanisms of cooperation between two institutions, i.e. vocational school center and the University of Konstanz, about the possibilities of further education for working teachers and ways how the vocational school center deals with the challenges of today like the increasing academisation, attractiveness of VET in the society, digitalisation and heterogeneity in the classroom. The excursion around the vocational school center made a very positive impression on both Ukrainian as well as European guests. This meeting showed that there are a lot of prospects for cooperation between different institutions and nations which are united by the common goal of bettering the education.
Second project workshop
On September 16-17, 2020, the second workshop of the Erasmus+ project “New mechanisms of partnership-based governance and standardization of vocational teacher education in Ukraine (PAGOSTE)” took place on the Zoom platform. It was organized by South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K.D. Ushynsky.
The purpose of the workshop was to discuss the results of implementation of the work packages, as well as issues related to ensuring the quality and sustainability of the PAGOSTE project results, the implementation of the dissemination strategy and the features of the project management.
Thomas Deissinger and Oksana Melnyk (University of Konstanz, Germany) made a general overview of the project implementation in terms of work packages and planned activities during the current and next project years.
Results of the national survey of the target groups on governance of vocational teacher education and results of the implementation of the first work package (WP1) "Analysis of governance of vocational teacher education" were presented by Oleksandra Borodiyenko (Institute of Vocational Education and Training of NAES of Ukraine).
Results of the survey on developing soft skills of vocational teachers in Ukraine were presented by the partners from Universita degli Studi Roma Tre.
Short summary of the round table "Governance of vocational teacher education: bringing together stakeholders and matching interests" (14-15.09.2020), organized by National Transport University (Ukraine), was presented by Danylo Savostin-Kosiak.
Svilana Tsymbaliuk (Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman) presented dissemination activities organized by the Ukrainian universities – project partners.
During the workshop, the partners had a fruitful discussion on the development of partnership in the field of VET teachers training, creating a professional network, the role of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in developing mechanisms of teacher education governance, the ways of increasing youth motivation to teach and the prestige of the teacher’s profession.
The partners planned a series of trainings for Ukrainian partners and stakeholders in order to form professional competencies and soft skills necessary for the development of partnership in the field of VET teachers’ training.
