The second meeting of the EAPPREN (Capacity Building for Intermediary Organisations through e-learning) European programme partners, including the Limassol Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was successfully completed in Limassol on May 26. The project is part of the EU’s Erasmus+ KA3 programmes and has a duration of two years (October 2016 – October 2018). The basic aim of EAPPREN is to promote and enhance apprenticeship and vocational training at business level and underline the role of the Chambers as liaisons between the entrepreneurial sector and secondary school education.
Promoting apprenticeship as an option for pupils and enterprises is one of the main objectives of the programme. Apprenticeship is defined as the training of young professionals in a certain vocation, through the transfer of on-the-job knowledge along with school education and homework, based on the method known as Vocational Education Training (VET). The EAPPREN project provides for the creation and operation of an e-learning platform, which will constitute an educational tool for the enterprises that choose to recruit apprentices. Some 200 enterprises, from all eight countries participating in the project, are expected to be directly involved while an additional 675 will have the opportunity to attend educational seminars and other information-oriented activities. Τhe Limassol Chamber will support the whole effort by providing education and information services, in addition to being a liaison with the relevant government departments.
EAPPREN is already in the 8th month of its implementation and work completed so far includes research by companies and Chambers regarding their assessment of apprenticeship educational needs as these relate to VET, as well as a review of best practices in apprenticeship. At the same time, decisions have been taken on the next steps towards the development of the e-learning platform, the educational material and the way of promoting it to interested parties and to the general public. More information regarding EAPPREN is available online at: http://eappren.eu/index.php and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/eappren/?fref=ts.
The 3rd meeting of the programme, which brings together partners from Greece, Slovenia, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Belgium, Latvia and Cyprus, will be held in Granada, Spain, in November.
