Online 21st century skills education

• May 9, 2021
• Projects
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“Online 21st century skills education project” (Erasmus+, KA2 Youth) seeks to increase the quality and development of digital youth work and learning pathways for young people to acquire 21st-century skills to cope with the changing world.

Objectives

1. To create city-specific strategies on promoting opportunities for young people to develop 21st-century skills;
2. To develop the capacity of partner organisations to use the “Cities of Learning” framework to create new digital learning opportunities and recognise the 21st-century skills of young people;
3. To create better access to 21st-century learning opportunities by developing Mobile App for Cities of Learning;
4. To promote new opportunities for 21st-century skills in participating countries and at the European level.

TARGET GROUPS

The project will involve the following groups directly from Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Romania, United Kingdom:

• Young people, including youth with disabilities in Greece and Romania and with fewer opportunities in other participating countries;
• Youth workers;
• Managers of youth work organisations and youth projects.
• Local stakeholders providing 21st-century skills development activities (e.g. organisations, businesses, formal education).
• (Youth work) stakeholders in the involved cities.

CONTEXT AND NEEDS

This project idea takes place in the digitalisation of societies, which is now additionally accelerated by the lockdowns due to the pandemic crisis. Youth work is actively searching for ways to organise youth work online without stopping their services to young people.

All partners had the initial needs analysis in their organisations and their municipalities to identify the most recent challenges and gaps in youth work provisions. Needs analysis included mainly interviews and document analysis.

Partners identified that young people spend more leisure time by using digital tools and the internet. It requires youth workers to be where young people are. Youth work organisations are looking for ways to combine residential, in-person activities with online solutions.

At the same time, most of our local partners – youth work organisations identify a lack of skills to implement digital youth work, to combine residential and online opportunities. In most cases, cities do not provide guidance and infrastructure to support organisations in organising youth work flexibly.

A common challenge is the lack of youth work programmes oriented towards competencies and skills needed for young people to thrive today and in the future. That’s where the 21st-century skills idea originates.

WHY TRANSNATIONAL?

Such developments are too expensive for a single municipality or organisation to finance. Therefore European strategic partnership will enable all partners and youth work field benefit from shared practices and joint effort to develop innovative solutions for digital youth work in Europe.

Partners: Skills Connect (leading partner, NL), Nectarus (LT), Badgecraft Ireland, Think Forward C.I.C (UK), Madiba (IT), Kids in Action (GR), Babilon Travel (RO) and Creativitas (LT)

The project is funded by the European Union through the ERASMUS+ programme.