Young people tend to acquire a range and variety of skills and competences through processes of
non-formal and informal learning. These skills may be developed when they take on certain
responsibilities within their own family, when they meet up with friends, or when they get
involved in sport, music-making, through involvement in employment or indeed as a result of
voluntary or community work. These skills may be related to being able to work in a team, being
able to organise things, being flexible, and being reliable. Young people are often not even aware
of this themselves.
These competences that have been acquired therefore may well be extremely relevant in terms of
the formal arena of vocational education and training. These skills and competences however
cannot be used systematically, because these competences tend to be invisible. This is especially
the case for disadvantaged young people, for whom the experience of engaging with the formal
environment of the school or training centre has not been successful.
The ICOVET project examined strategies to make these informally or non-formally gained
competences visible in order to enable disadvantaged young people to better understand their own competences and to
learn how to use them in engaging with the formal world of vocational education and
training, give teachers in schools of general education a better understanding of pupils`
competences acquired outside schools and enable teachers to systematically use
these competences in preparing for VET, give disadvantaged young people better access to training and employment in companies,
likewise enable companies or training institutions to systematically use these competences
in VET.
About the Website
This site offers information, materials, methodologies and tools developed in the framework of the Leonardo da Vinci pilot project ICOVET. All core products are available in English, German, Spanish, Greek and Romanian Language.
The project was carried out with the support of the Commission of the European Community. The content does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Community, nor does it invoke any responsibility on their part.
