Improvement of the Staff Qualification for Survey, Evaluation and Prognosis of Employer’s Qualification Requirements and Requirements of Whole Regions

The project called “Improvement of the Staff Qualification for Survey, Evaluation and Prognosis of Employer’s Qualification Requirements and Requirements of Whole Regions” is presented by BCEO (Czech Republic) as the coordinator and implemented together with partners from Slovak Republic (UPSVR Bratislava), Austria (L&R Social Research) and Hungary (ZMKH). The main objective of the project was to increase the level of vocational education of the participants by using experiences, information and knowledge in the complex area of monitoring, evaluation and prognostication of thequalification needs of employers and whole regions. The basic aim of this Partnership was to transfer information, knowledge and experiences mainly in the field of monitoring labour market and solving very difficult problems of generalization and evaluation data about the employment structure. The task of the Partnership was to find ways of efficient implementation of research surveys in EU countries with a fully compatible structure with the statistic selection researches performed by Eurostat (Labour Force Survey). The other task of the Partnership was to define methods which would help to generate the researched data and define general qualification needs of regions. Current issues and tasks were discussed and solved together within the specialized seminars, which were organized involving all partners. The project was realized in 24 months – 9 planned collective four-sided meetings were arranged, where we discussed the differences of each country’s culture and speciality. Within the project a common questionnaire in order to identify the qualification needs of employers regarding the partner countries (resp. in each EU country) was conducted. The very extensive research survey in the four partner countries resulted with several thousands of respondents (December 2010 there were already 3,292 respondents with 182,7 thousands of employees and in December 2011 there were even 4,598 respondents with 272,0 thousands of employees). From analytical point of view these huge numbers enabled a quality process of extracted results. The structure of the questionnaire bears international valid statistical classifications which help Eurostat to observe and evaluate working potential. Regarding that fact the questionnaire is usable in every EU country. Within the framework of this project and the research survey a method for data analysis was proposed and therefore the possibilities for a forecast of qualification needs of regions could be defined. Thanks to this project the qualifications and the know-how of the skilled workers could be improved, which became noticeable in every partner organization. Highly qualified skilled workers joined the project with the objective of mutual learning, exchanging experiences, knowledge, skills and information. The number of staff who have worked on this project and participated on the working meetings was necessarily limited (total number of the participants of each seminar was about 20 persons). Other people’s participation was necessary during the project period in order to realize the implementation of the project objectives. Approximately 90 – 100 people – employed by the project partners – gained extra professional know-how during the present project, and eventually their skills were raised. All partners made efforts for the distribution of the project results. The results were published on the web pages of the partners. It was presented to the public in different ways (press, TV, radio, brochure, conference). The project results were presented to the social partners on the regional level (local and regional self-government, labour unions, major employers and training institutions) and on international forums like the CENTROPE project, the Austrian – Czech and Austrian – Slovakian Expert Academies, EURES programmes. Every employee of participating organizations was informed about the Partnership outputs. The most important information regarding the project was published in the Czech professional press ‘ANDRAGOGIKA’. The newly created model of the project was tested several times in 4 EU countries. We examined the general necessity of this new model regarding the detection of the qualification needs. Having executed of the pilot researches the partnership awarded the conception as a useful and following one. We will offer the project results to European Committee as a verified Best Practice for the distribution on European level.