The Agency for Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education participates as a partner in the project BequalApp: Benchmarking for Quality Assurance in Apprenticeships and Work Based Learning within the Erasmus + program, Key Activities 2 – cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practice: cooperation between institutions through strategic partnerships for vocational education and training. The project is based on the recognized values of apprenticeships and other forms of WBL highlighted in the priority education policies of the European Commission and EU member states. The main goal of the project is to raise awareness of the value of apprenticeships and other forms of work-based learning such as internships and internships through the development of a platform and online benchmarking tools to ensure quality in apprenticeships and work-based learning.

In addition to the general objectives, the project also sets specific objectives, namely: the development of a quality assurance framework for apprenticeships and work-based learning for VET institutions and employers; development and testing of self-evaluation questionnaires for VET institutions and employers; developing and maintaining a multilingual online platform on quality assurance in apprenticeships and WBL with various resources, documents, articles and audiovisual materials and examples of good practice; development of 2 online tools for setting benchmarks for apprenticeships and WBL for VET institutions and employers, through which users will be able to compare their performance with other institutions of similar profile in their own or other European countries, learn from each other and continuously promote the quality of apprenticeships and WBL; development of Bequal.app badges for VET institutions and employers (companies).

The target groups are VET institutions (secondary schools and other institutions that provide initial and continuing vocational education and training programs) and companies that provide WBL.

The project coordinator is the Kaunas Chamber of Industry and Crafts from Lithuania, and other partners come from Belgium, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Germany and Slovenia and relate to regulatory institutions in the field of vocational education, employers’ representatives, consulting and educational institutions and higher education institutions. In addition to the Agency, the Croatian Chamber of Trades and Crafts is a national partner in the project.

Website of project: https://www.bequalapp.eu/en/