Description of the project
The OCCAY project aims, in accordance with the Digital Education Action Plan of the European Commission, at developing an inclusive and modular instrument with its learnings from the Covid-19 pandemic and make one education and training fit for the digital age. OCCAY will provide educational and vocational counsellors as well as institutions with an easy-to-use and practical tool to assess their digital competences for their counselling activity and to learn those contents and skills that they still lack. It will combine the necessary areas (communication, information, work tools, counselling tools) of educational and career guidance in order to be able to offer them the online setting in a high-quality, data-safe and professional way on one digital platform. The project’s main objectives are:
- To make career counselling more efficient
- To enable much better cooperation with counsellors’ clients and allow applications closer to their individual needs
- To provide institutions with practice-related material to integrate knowledge transfer into their organisation on the one hand and to anchor digitalization at all their levels on the other
- To allow a European common and transferable understanding within the vocational education of career counsellors as well as a European quality assurance
- To stop national proliferation of standards, procedures, methods and tools by offering a common digital platform for mutual education and training
ACTIVITIES
- Development of a self-assessment grid based on DigComp 2.2 targeting at least 300 career counsellors and involvement of at least 48 stakeholders in focus groups to understand the counsellor’s digital skills and learning needs in all the project countries.
- Piloting of The OCCAY Hybrid Flexi Course with at least 30 career counsellors in each partner country
- Development of an online tool supporting online counselling tested by 20 career counsellors.
- Involvement of 96 managers and directors of vocational and educational institutions in focus groups to define organizational strategies for counselling.
- Round tables with at least 12 European and national politicians as well as at least 12 policy makers in order to identify the recommendations to be addressed to decision-makers
RESULTS
- Self-assessment grid and needs analysis of digital skills: An online self-assessment tool addressed to career counsellors based on DigComp 2.0 to support them in understanding their level of digital skills. A report on their needs will be developed, a crucial basis for the learning contents of the OCCAY course.
- OCCAY Hybrid Flexi Course for career counsellors. A modular system based on the digital competence framework (DigComp 2.0) with 72 units in sum.
- Platform for online career guidance: the platform will provide counsellors with one tool in their work with clients. The all-in-one approach will make the collaboration between counsellor and client more flexible and the different functions will be used according to the individual needs of the client.
- Strategy handbook for vocational and educational institutions. This strategy manual will stimulate the organizations to deal with unusual or even uncomfortable themes such as legal, regulatory and technical aspects and will help to establish a supportive, creative and safe working atmosphere for the consultants.
- Policy recommendation for hybrid career counselling on the decision-maker level. This structured recommendation will cover the major areas and support the holistic vocational education and training curricula for virtual consultancy by encouraging national financers and decision-makers.
PARTNERS
- Coordinator: KARBON Consulting GmbH (Austria)
- Volkshochschule im Landkreis Cham e.V. (Germany)
- bFlow Webdesign (Austria)
- Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci (Italy)
- Business Foundation for Education (Bulgaria)
