The other project partner organisations are Den Jydske Håndværkerskole, Teknisk akademi. Denmark; Sivitanidios vocational school (KEK Sivitanidios), Greece; JTL, UK and Svenska Elektrikerforbundet, Sweden.

Project aim: The project developed a methodology to help document and assess accumulated knowledge and skills for potential employees in the electro-technical sector from any European country - and hopefully others. Individuals who have been assessed and verified get a three-part CV. This system can be used to account existing knowledge resources, on an individual, enterprise and societal level. In general terms, the objective of this project is to increase the visibility of learning taking place outside of formal training and education institutions and systems, thus giving credit to the indispensable role of this knowledge - to individuals as well as to enterprises and society in general.

Benefits: There are many potential benefits of establishing a tool for the documentation of the individual's accumulated knowledge and skills. In almost every country and industry, we find the following elements to be of central importance:

1. For individuals, the awarding of credit to non-formal learning may ease their entrance into the formal training system as well as improve their elegibility in the labour market.
2. For enterprises, awarding credit to non-formal learning may be of importance because it increases their potential for effective human resource management. This system will be used to obtain a goal-oriented and precise definition of every employees's knowledge development needs, based on his or her professional needs or wishes, and private interests.
3. For society as a whole, awarding of credit to non-formal learning may be of importance in simplifying the transfer of skills between different spheres (education, work, home) and in order to improve allocation of resources.
4. For more accurate and rapid assessment and validation of foreign workers, both refugees and other immigrants.

Unemployment is the main source of poverty and social exclusion in almost every European country. This European perspective is very important, as immigration between countries is increasing. We believe that the harmonised documentation procedure that results from this project will make it easier to guide foreign immigrants quickly into productive working life.

The project results:
Methodology
The project group have developed a pan-European methodology or procedure that will enable electro-technical or other enterprises to document and assess accumulated knowledge and skills for an employee or potential employee. This methodology is explained in a handbook, and is supported by a web/electronic-based tool to aid the process.
(See the main page of the web-based tool here: http://komptest.prodoc.no A password is required to be able to use the tool.)

Documentation procedure and associated tool
The project group have developed and tried out a tool in several different European electro-technical pilot companies to aid the process of identifying and objectively assessing an individual's accumulated knowledge and skills. All five partner country languages are present in both the methodology and the tool.

The tool will help the individual to record his/her own experience and skills. By 'record' we mean that the individual will, in a systematic manner, register his/her personalia, qualifications social skills (family life, social activities, interests), milieu and local community (commissions, voluntary duties, affiliations to any societies, sports club, choir), professional skills (work, hobby, interests, etc.) and any wishes or future intentions related to their interests or work. A three part CV will be used for this (1. personalia, 2 professional skills, an 3. general skills).

Soft skills: The 'assessment' involves a conversation with the employer based on what the individual has recorded about him/herself. It will follow clearly defined guidelines and will be strictly confidential between the individual and the employer. To aid this development dialog the project has developed an 'Ability to take action ' questionnaire.The main objective of this assessment is to develop the basis of a personal development plan involving measures that the employer is able to initiate or support.

The mapping tool is web-based whilst the CV and "The ability to take action" forms are available electronically through the AKS web site for those who have passwords for the main mapping tool.

Read more about the importance of finding a good system for registering accumulated knowledge and skills.

REF:
(The Norwegian Contractors Association)
(The Electro Technical Research and Development Centre)
(The Electro Technical Training Council)