The BlueKep-Knowledge Exchange Programme project, approved under the Interreg Italy-Croatia Programme 2014-2020, has been launched.

The project has been presented on the occasion of the kick-off meeting, in a Press Conference held in the premises of the Regional Council of Friuli Venezia Giulia Region

 

 

Trieste, 8 March – The BlueKep-Knowledge builds upon previous work done in the field of international cultural exchange and learning programs for secondary high school students.

Coordinated by the Informest Agency, the project involves the Adriatic Ionian Euroregion, the Marche Region, the Istria Region, the Šibenik County Development Agency and the Agency for the coordination and development of Split Dalmatia County. The project, which started in January this year, will last for 18 months and will finish at the end of June 2019, managing a budget of almost one million euros.

The initiative was presented in all its details by the General Director for Work, Training, Education, Equal Opportunities, Youth Policies, Research and Universities of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, Ketty Segatti, by the Director of the Adriatic-Ionian Euroregion, Francesco Cocco, and by the technical secretary of the 2014-2020 Interreg VA Italy-Croatia Programme, Marin Miletić.

BlueKep is about mobility, maritime value chain and professional qualifications: because BluKEP is innovative. In particular, its focus in on promoting new jobs linked to the maritime value chain through the provision of highly qualifying and accessible training path. The project intends to integrate and harmonise the educational systems of the Adriatic-Ionian area with a series of targeted actions that take into account their strengths and weaknesses. The final objective will be to involve about forty students from all areas of the project partnership in international exchanges dedicated to the “maritime value chain”.

BlueKEP takes step from the KEPASS project, part of the 2007/2013 IPA Adriatic Programme, and the BlueSKILLS projects, financed in 2016 by the same programme. It builds upon the previous experiences of the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region, which, with almost 150 students involved in EU-financed international exchanges, holds almost a decade of experience in the field of international mobility applied to upper secondary schools and tailored in particular for technical institutes and strategic sectors such as the nautical/maritime sector and tourism.

BlueKep aims to capitalise these results and develop new guidelines for the accreditation of schools, the selection procedures of students, the recognition of the competences (training credits) acquired abroad, the implementation of internship programmes, the training of both teachers and students.

According to Ketty Segatti, General Director of the Education, Training and Research Department of the FVG Region: “The BlueKEP project covers three fundamental aspects of local smart specialisation: the so-called blue growth, the professional development of youth, and innovation through integration, inasmuch as the project not only benefits both students and teachers, but bets on young generations and the sea as resources we share with our neighbouring countries”.

As the President of Informest Claudio Cressati explains: “There is a very long preparation behind an international student mobility programme, entailing to find a mediation between diverse educational systems and map new professions. An efficient management aims not just at making students travel, but at investing on them, solid institutional relations and skills are hence crucial.

If it is true that today kids travel a lot more than once, it is also true that interactions between schools of Europe and between schools and the labour market are still too few. International mobility in the field of higher education, and particularly of technical sectors, will be a decisive lever to address the challenges posed by the labour market to European new generations”.

Bluekep Key FiguresPostcard and contents

For more information: BLUE KEP project description

Contact: bluekep@informest.it