GEGS – Good e-Guidance Stories is a project funded by the European Commission in the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme, under the action of policy experimentation. Its strategic objective is the modernisation of the role of guidance, support and preparation to work in the context of vocational training and active employment policies.
The digital transition and the very rapid changes in the labour market affect the sector significantly: structural needs, already evident for years, have undergone a huge acceleration during the Covid-19 pandemic. The need to offer new approaches to guidance practitioners and to update digital tools in order to support students, workers and jobseekers effectively is becoming much stronger. At the same time, we should bear in mind the digital transition needs so that guidance practitioners can adapt and be able to respond to the challenges.
Based on those needs, the Region of Sardinia, together with the Land of Berlin in Germany and the Region of Thessaly in Greece, are strategically leading an innovative project, which considers the experimentation of two main outputs: the testing of an interactive professional development curriculum for guidance professionals in the VET sector, and a digital platform based on artificial intelligence, developed by Jobiri and adapted to the specific local needs.
While GeGS has been operationally up and running for a year an a half, the conference Choosing Today and Tomorrow aims to take stock of the main issues informing our project and analysed during the experimentation phase. In a national and international fast-paced scenario, and in some ways dramatic evolution, the conference emphasises the structural challenges that Italy in general, and the Sardinian territory in particular are facing: the need for a structural reform of the entire training system, in light of the ambitious objectives of the PNRR and the GOL programmes – Guaranteed Employability and Employment – and all the steps they entail. At the same time, the conference represents a platform for comparison and mutual exchange with the priorities emerging in the different contexts of other European countries involved.
Policy-makers, managers, enterprises and guidance practitioners from 6 European countries will discuss the key issues that are affecting the field of training and active labour market policies, and try to find common answers to those challenges, considering the key skills approach for the labour market as well as the relevance and adaptability of e-guidance tools that act as a bridge and intermediary between education, enterprise, work and citizens’ needs
The Directorate for Labour, Vocational Training, Cooperation and Social Security of the Region Sardinia, together with the Department for Labour, Integration and employment of the Land Berlin and the Directorate for Development and Planning of the Region of Thessaly will draw their strategies, perspectives and planning. They will be complemented by the project partners, experts and practitioners from France, Ireland, UK, Germany and Italy.
Invitations to participate have been sent to institutions and agencies at the Regional, National and European level, concerned with education, VET and active labour market policies.