“The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and put unprecedented pressure on education and training systems worldwide and across the Union. It has brought major changes to how we
learn, teach, communicate and collaborate within and between our education and training communities. This has had an impact on learners, their families, teachers, trainers, institution leaders, as well as on the broader society.”
This introduction to the Council conclusions on countering the COVID-19 crisis in education and training was the starting point for the consortium to plan an initiative that combined
contemporary digital advances in learning technologies that can be implemented in a remote context, designed to provide trainees with a supportive and responsive learning
environment that takes into account the “new” challenges that a rudimentary transfer of traditional classroom-based resources to the home or other context was not as effective as it
could have been.
In this context, STAY+ is a project to gamify positive behaviours of young people during the pandemic and beyond. It seeks to provide an innovative solution for VET professionals that
have found it challenging to engage young people (aged 15-21 years old) through the transition to online/distance learning. It specifically looks to promote positive behaviours that protect learner wellbeing and have an overall improvement on retention rates.
STAY+ will be unique in its approach as it seeks to:
- gamify health and wellbeing best practice into an educational/training digital platform
- use leading digital marketing and engagement techniques in an educational/training setting
- use location-based data to tailor the mobile-experience to where you are in the world
The project will be based on the ‘Stay’ mobile interactive site that has piloted a rewards scheme for young people adhering to the COVID-19 UK government guidelines (and those also utilises GPS technology to reward them for staying at home. The STAY+ project will build upon this innovative model to embed rewards into VET digital learning environments with a
sustainable, flexible and long term view beyond the current pandemic. It will develop the initial concept further through transnational cooperation and a range of reports, resources and tools targeting the specific needs of VET organisations.
The STAY+ Platform will be developed with the overarching objective of empowering young people to become advocates of digital vocational training; with increased awareness of a subject area, health and wellbeing, and how to maintain their own motivation, manage their time and complete tasks. The desired impact of this objective is to improve engagement and retention levels of learners on vocational training courses.
Target Groups:
- Direct Target Group: VET Centres providing vocational training to vulnerable groups , e.g. NEET groups
- Indirect Target Group: Youths and young people aged 16 - 21 associated with the VET centres within the direct target group
PROJECT OBJECTIVES:
- Provide responses to the pressures on training systems brought by the pandemic
- Promote positive behaviours that protect learner wellbeing
- Empower young people to become advocates of digital vocational training
- Increase engagement and retention levels of learners on vocational training courses
- Develop an innovative engagement solution for VET professionals with a view towards sustainability, flexibility, and long-term longevity beyond the pandemic
