S4J supports partner institutions to be oriented towards the regional market demands and for the structured involvement of the private sector. To this end, we facilitate:

• Structured dialogue with businesses;
• Tracing graduates;
• Career guidance;
• Enriching and updating curricula.

Structured Dialogue

For students to develop skills matching labor market needs, our partner VET providers engage in structured dialogue with regional businesses and other stakeholders. To this end, every year in November dialogue roundtables are organized at a local level.

Main providers (public and non-public) of the education and training (vocational education and higher education) at regional level meet with the most important companies in the region grouped by different industries (or industry groups), to identify needs for enriching or updating their curricula.

This structured dialogue:

• Increases awareness and exchanges at a regional level among VET providers and companies.
• Strengthens coordination and partnership between providers and employers, narrowing the gap between VET and jobs.
• Schools understand what skills are needed in the labor market.
• Companies articulate more clearly their needs for skills

Following these roundtables, regional skills offer catalogs are compiled for each region.

Tracer Study

Being focused on the labor market and its needs for skills, Vocational Education and Training institutions develop the accurate instruments to guide their educational offer and their students’ career paths towards market demands. One of such instruments is the graduates’ tracer study. It consists in surveys aimed to trace the employment situation of youngsters up until 1 year after their graduation. Schools analyze the data obtained from the tracer study and based on its findings make well-informed decisions on their curricula.

S4J supports partner institutions for the implementation and well-functioning of graduates’ tracing process as well as for capacity building of the Tracer Coordinator in the Development Unit. All our partner institutions have already set up a tracer system at provider level for their graduates.

Career Orientation 

Choosing a career, as a pivotal step for the future of youngsters, involves the support of parents, teachers and career counselors.

To support this process, the S4J project drafted requirement profiles and job descriptions for 20 professions. ‘Requirement profiles’ for different professions serve as an instrument for professional and career guidance of the students both in 9-year education and vocational education. Through them, young people learn what are the physical, personal and social requirements that can be obtained in school and which are required by the profession they aspire. Thus, the student can reflect upon: Can I meet such requirements? Do I want to meet them? In this way the student has higher chances of choosing a profession that best suits them!

Enriching and Updating Curricula

Following the consultations with businesses and based on the findings of graduates’ trace study, our partner institutions enrich and update the curriculum and develop new modules, courses, educational directions and profiles. For example, ‘Food Processing’ started as a new educational direction at ‘Kolin Gjoka’ vocational school in Lezha following the consultations with the private sector. Also, the program of the Course ‘Albanian Sign Language Instructor’ was approved by the Ministry of Finance and Economy in cooperation with the Albanian National Association of Deaf People and with the support of S4J.