What is Skills@Work and why are we doing it?

Skills@Work is an eighteen-country project that promotes internationalism within the vocational education and training sector across South East Europe (SEE) and the United Kingdom. The project concentrates on:

			skills development to support economic growth and a globally competitive Europe
			networks and long-term relationships to support the response of governments in SEE to the challenges of employability
			present the UK as one of the key partners in areas of enterprise, innovation and employment in SEE
			support the British Council’s vision for Europe – “Working together to build next generation Europe”

What activities does the project include?

The project has two strands: Policy Dialogue and College Partnership.

Within the Policy Dialogue strand, in cooperation with the VET Agency in Croatia and the UK Sector Skills Council for Hospitality and tourism People 1st, we have produced a Customer Care manual for teachers in hospitality and tourism schools.

The manual aims to elaborate the concept of customer care as the most important factor of high-quality service. That way, it will help teachers cascade their knowledge and information about the importance of good customer care to their students who will, one day, work in direct contact with guests.

The manual covers and presents necessary skills and information on customer care for different occupations within the tourism and hospitality sector.

Teachers can also find detailed descriptions and explanations of learning outcomes, areas and methods of teaching and lots of examples ready to be used in classrooms with their students.

You can view the manual here.

The College Partnership strand created a link between two education institutions: the LLandrillo College in Wales and Hospitality and Tourism school from Zagreb.

Two colleges are working closely on exchanging experience, knowledge and ideas towards curriculum development, student project work, quality assurance systems, cooperation with employers, improving practical work for students and transfer of best practice as well as mobility of students.

Last year a group of 6 students from the Zagreb school spent a week in Wales where they took active part in the college programme and especially in their practical work.

This year, a group of Welsh students is going to visit the Zagreb school – they will have a chance to experience both the Croatian school programme and to work in a couple of Zagreb hotels and thus gain a first-hand experience in dealing with customers.

The Skills@Work plan for this year covers a wide range of activities such as organizing training seminars for teachers in hospitality and tourism schools, organizing a visit by a UK chef who will run a presentation / workshop on British cuisine, workshops for VET Agency advisors and visits by employers to hospitality and tourism schools.

If you wish to learn more about the Skills@Work project, please, contact Maja Mandekić, project manager.