Nearly half a million Euros of subsidy for OU part in ‘Service Centre Lifelong Learning Limburg’
 | ‘Service Centre Lifelong Learning Limburg’, a joint project of the Arcus College, Leeuwenborgh Opleidingen, Open Universiteit Nederland and Hogeschool Zuyd, received on 14 October 2009 the go-ahead from OP-Zuid, the authority that granted the subsidy. |
With this subsidy the Open Universiteit, by joint effort and perseverance, secures nearly half a million Euros for a project that serves regional economic development.
Service Centre
The Service Centre is acting as the regional knowledge and expertise centre which helps achieving the match between labour supply and demand by research, competence development on MBO, HBO and academic levels and by development of education with help of innovative (educational-) technology. The joint efforts will result in 125,6 FTE of jobs regionally and they will put lifelong learning in Limburg on a higher plan. Additionally they will lead up to an increase of the economic performance of the knowledge economy.
Theo Bovens, chairman of the Board of Governors of the Open Universiteit, represents the Open Universiteit in the steering committee of the project ‘Service Centre Lifelong Learning Limburg’. CELSTEC and the BDG (Business Development Group) of the Open Universiteit add to the project.
CELSTEC’s contribution
CELSTEC’s educational technologists and researchers contribute to the sub-projects in the field of EVC (Acknowledgement Achieved Competences) procedures and Learning Networks. They chair the sub-project about ‘Learning Networks and knowledge sharing’ and greatly contribute to training and certifying EVC assessors. Additionally CELSTEC participates actively in a.o. the development of various educational scenarios, adapted to the educational needs that rise from lifelong learning pilots; the integration and further development of e-portfolio instruments; and the development and support of pilots.
BDG’s contribution
The BDG chairs the sub-project ‘Active ageing’ (this concept supports the idea of people staying active until they are of great age), in which employees of the various HRM departments of the educational organisations participate. Goal is to formulate a generic set of criteria for activating mobility policy within and between organisations and to test this with products from other sub-projects. Next to this, the BDG takes care of the administrative justification of all OU contributions, in cooperation with FAS (Financial Administrative Service Centre).
Educational paths
Within the joint effort of Lifelong Learning Limburg, a demand driven offer of innovative and function-oriented educational paths will be developed. These educational paths will be based on (EVC)-assessments. These will be developed as continuous learning curve Intermediate Vocational Education – Higher Vocational Education/ University, in cooperation with organisations from the branches concerned, such as the social service and the process technology sectors.
.
Pilots
Additionally, a number of pilot projects, which the BDG will execute and which will focus on ‘active ageing’ of employees, is part of the project. During the project at least 15 pilots will be planned. Next to the pilots that will take place, other parties will ask questions to the Service Centre Lifelong Learning Limburg, which it will need to deal with. The scope and impact of these questions will vary.
Cooperation
The project is executed in close cooperation with the Province of Limburg, the municipalities of Heerlen, Sittard-Geleen and Maastricht, Technocentre South-Limburg, the UWV werkbedrijf (organisation matching job supply and demand), the Leerwerkloket South-Limburg (organisation young people – until Higher Vocational Education level – can turn to, if they want to combine learning and working) and the regional business world. MKB-Limburg and Empower Limburg represent the last mentioned. The project management Learning & Working from the Province of Limburg and the Ministry for Social Affairs and Employment, as well as the Ministry of Education, Cultural Affairs and Science endorse the importance of the project.
Subsidy
For the project, subsidy has been seeked – and received – from the Operational Program South-Netherlands (OP-Zuid), co-financed by the Province of Limburg, the municipalities of Sittard-Geleen, Maastricht and Parkstad Limburg. The Hogeschool Zuyd is leading partner in this EU-regional project.
