Project Description

For more than a decade, the European Union has been financing transnational mobility of people in initial vocational training (IVET) through mobility actions provided for by the Community programme Lifelong learning. Ever year, some 30,000 young people in IVET receive allowances to cover their cost-of-living expenses when completing a period of work placement in another European country.

Despite these measures, hardly any qualifying mobility can be found in the European VET sector: Most periods of work placement are short (i.e. only rarely they are longer than three weeks) and usually not an integrated part of training programmes but rather a kind of “interlude”.

In answer to the Commission’s call for proposals DG EAC 45/06 , the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber has launched the project Pro Mobility, within the framework of which platforms for the promotion and support of qualifying mobility in VET are aimed to be established.

Qualifying mobility is characterised by two aspects:

• Length: The project’s aim is that the duration of mobility stays should substantially exceed the currently common length of three weeks but last between three and twelve months. This measure will make acquisition of specialist qualifications easier.
  
  
• Credits: The project’s aim consists in ensuring that periods of work spent abroad as well as acquired competences are credited in the sending country. This means that the period of work placement abroad will not prolong training in the home country but be recognised as an integral part of it. In other words, the stay abroad is aimed to replace training periods in the home country. In addition, also competences acquired in the home country should be credited without having to be tested and assessed again. The basis for this credit transfer will be an agreement between the sending and the receiving institution.

Pro Mobility Project (Flyer)
Pro Mobility Poster