MaTE

Marketing through Europe – is an Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic partnerships for vocational education and training project targeting VET-teachers and VET students who need to develop their competences regarding internationalization, marketing, marketing communications, working in teams and learning through projects which are offered by associated partners e.g. companies in need of refreshing their marketing plans and implementation.

Very often the internationalization and growth of businesses is limited by the lack of competent workforce. The indirect objective of the project is to respond to the above-mentioned problem by training competent workforce to the needs of small and medium sized businesses on the edge of internationalization. According to research the employers seem to integrate internationalization competences with such features as empathy, resilience, capability to solve problems, self-esteem, assertiveness and trustworthiness. Internationalization competences are not seen only as language skills, cultural understanding or mobility. The training blueprint developed by the project produces not only traditional marketing and internationalization skills, but also soft skills appreciated by the employers such as capability to solve problems, resilience and curiosity.

The pedagogical context of the training blueprint is team learning, project learning and teacher teams. According to studies team learning as a pedagogical solution enhances the skills and qualities needed in the future of work: communication skills, seeing tasks as projects, project management skills, flexibility and ability to cope with change.

The objective of the project is to develop a flexible training scheme / curriculum for business, administration, commerce and management field of upper secondary VET. In the training scheme learning at work, project learning (in cooperation with SMEs and other organizations), studying abroad, digital learning and team learning are combined. By developing this flexible training scheme, the project enables business, administration, commerce students to acquire competences needed when operating in international operational environments and to advance the development of their soft skills.

Project goals and intellectual outputs

The main aims of the strategic partnership project are:

1) Implementation of an investigative research and comparison of marketing (communications) competence requirements in the partner countries. This involves both desk research regarding the national vocational qualifications and also empirical research (survey or/and interviews) regarding the opinions and perceptions of company / organisation representatives on the needed marketing competences in work context.

2) Development of training scheme (theme being marketing ) that is targeted to business, administration, commerce, management and marketing students in the partner countries. The training scheme is conducted partly digital and partly face-to-face and in English. The pedagogical methods of the training scheme include team learning, project learning and learning by doing. In each partner country there are companies/SME´s/organisations that are willing to let students plan and perform their marketing activities. These companies/SMEs/organisations act as associated partners during the project.

3) Development of training materials that are relevant regarding the above mentioned training scheme that is e-learning course / module.

4) The development of marketing (communications) training scheme and training materials make it possible for business, administration and commerce students and teachers in partner countries to network with each other. It also makes it possible for the business, administration and commerce students to complete study modules in English and get international experience through studying as a member of an European study group.

5) Through this experience, the students in the partner countries will improve not only their marketing skills and knowledge but also their language and interaction skills as well as other soft skills.

6) Through the experience of guiding and instructing the students through the project learning process the participating VET-teachers develop their professional competences: they learn how to apply new coaching-based pedagogical methods (e.g. team learning), how to use digital learning environments and tools (testing and development of e-learning course / module), their English skills will be improved and they get the experience of teaching and coaching in English and producing English learning materials.