The end of an era! Level Up project has been successfully completed. It started 3 years ago project and aimed to promote vocational education and training (VET) to young people as a first choice.

The Erasmus+ funded initiative was coordinated by Aspire-Igen in the UK and included Caped Koala Studios - UK, the Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland, the Business Foundation for Education in Bulgaria, the Government Office of Békés County in Hungary, SATAEDU in Finland and VHS-Cham in Germany.

The partnership has developed the mobile application Level Up to VET which helps the young people make more informed choices around VET careers. The game gives them a chance to explore a number of jobs, such as Carer, Hair and beauty therapist, Construction worker, Mechanic, Sports therapist and Sous chef.

The mobile app is freely available in 5 languages for Android and IOS.

Additionally, the game website offers useful labour market information - demand, remuneration, prospects for the next years.

The consortium has also collected an Ebook with best practices of game-based learning application in careers guidance promoting the advantages of this approach, which makes learning more attractive for the students.

A really enjoyable, up-to-date and satisfactory initiative, that has also proved to be useful for young people and career guidance practitioners. Here is some of the feedback received from users:

• "I like the idea of combining a game with acquiring new knowledge. Indeed, this game can throw a new perspective on a learner who doesn't know what he wants to do."
• "The information about the professions is presented in an interesting way."
• "I learned useful information about different jobs; also - the questions are easy and appropriate for students and give an overview of the different professions and benefits of VET."
• "The game itself is very attractive, but the additional resources on the site are quite useful."
• "It is exciting to be a part of something so innovative and modern! I will promote the game among the students I work with and I think it will be very useful for them in making future decisions. Congratulations to the whole team!"

For more information, see the project website and Facebook page.

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
Project No: 2017-1-UK01-KA202-036643.

The FUTURE project continues with a new upgrading initiative, called CRAFT - Co-working in Rural Areas to prepare young people for Future Trends.

3 of the FUTURE project partners - Business Foundation for Education, CIAPE - Italian Permanent Learning Centre and Computer Technology Institute in Greece - join efforts with 4 other organizations - Czestochowa Small Business Development Association in Poland (coordinator), the Slovenian Institute STEP for Occupational Psychology and Entrepreneurship, DESA - Dubrovnik Regional Center for Community Building and Civil society development in Croatia and the Norwegian training organization Kunnskapstrening It.

CRAFT will step on the findings and results of FUTURE and Go Circular to supporting young people from European rural areas in launching co-working places. To achieve this, in the next 2 years the partnership will design a training program and a 3D Virtual World platform, which will promote the skills needed in the future labor market in the areas of entrepreneurship in:

• personal care and health
• green economy
• STEAM.

The CRAFT kick-off meeting took place in a hybrid mode (Rome/ZOOM) on September 10-11, allowing the partners to plan their first activities. BFE, CTI and CIAPE presented the Future Time Traveller platform and the learning environment, combining game-based scenarios in a 3D virtual world, as well as the key messages concerning the evolution of jobs in the next years.

We are looking forward to another successful and inspiring initiative, funded under Erasmus+ programme.