International knowledge-sharing forum on the challenges of Erasmus accreditation

17-12-2021

News | School education

Training and Cooperation Activities (TCAs) under the Erasmus+ programme are newly introduced forms of Long-term Activities (LTAs), which provide a strategic framework for exploring a policy area for several years (e.g., social inclusion and access, sustainability, digitalisation, etc.) to have an impact on the programme and the policy managed by them.

The Erasmus+ TCA Resource Centre of the Tempus Public Foundation, the SALTO E&T Resource Centre, coordinates the long-term activity in accreditation to discuss Erasmus accreditation issues and dilemmas in the framework of thematic workshops. The series of activities provide an opportunity for those involved in public education, vocational training and adult learning to

  • experts to share experiences and joint professional thinking on accreditation mobility applications, and
  • the applicant target group for the successful submission of their accreditation application for international exchange of experience,
  • and project coordinators who have already successfully applied for projects that require long-term strategic thinking.

The introduction of Erasmus accreditation marked an important change for institutions in the public education, vocational training and adult learning sectors in terms of long-term planning. It required a change of approach not only from the applicants, but also from the experts evaluating the proposals.

Within the framework of the new accreditation LTA, Tempus Public Foundation organised a workshop between 10-11 June 2021. Experts and national agency staff arrived at the event from 11 countries to share their experiences and questions about the new type of proposal. The seminar also aimed to give participants an opportunity to express their opinion on the structure of the type of proposal and discuss ways of evaluating proposals, focusing on the Erasmus plan formulated by the institutions.

During the two days, five different thematic workshops were available to the participants.

The first three workshops were explicitly aimed at experts evaluating proposals and focused on topics such as assessing the coherence of objectives, needs and activities, difficulties in assessing the goals of the Erasmus Plan or project management and project results. To the last two workshops, the representatives of the national agencies of different countries were invited, who, from the view of the proposal managers, shared their good practices on the process of evaluating proposals and gathered their proposals for the development of the proposal type.

A total of 29 experts and 24 national office staff participated in this joint work, representing all three education sectors appropriately. Most had a lot of experience in evaluating applications or conducting applications.

Based on the feedback, the participants found the event extremely useful. For experts, this was the first time they could meet and share their experiences at an international forum. The accreditation LTA will continue so that next year, it will be possible to resume discussions based on the results achieved up to now.

Julianna Lukács and Róbert Szilágyi | Tempus Public Foundation | Erasmus+ Programme Directorate

 

Last modified: 15-12-2022