BDS hosted the kick-off partnership meeting under ISTRA project

BDS hosted the kick-off partnership meeting under ISTRA project

The kick-off partnership meeting under ISTRA international project ("International Standards training in VET for promotion of market relevant education") was held on 16 and 17 November 2016 at the Bulgarian Institute for Standardization.

The project is funded by Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission, Key Action "Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices - Strategic Partnerships", managed by the Human Resources Development Centre (HRDC) – the Programme’s National Agency for Bulgaria.

The two-year project will be implemented in partnership between Burgas Free University (Coordinator), Bulgarian Institute for Standardization, Latvian College of Culture, Bureau of Standards of the Standardization, Accreditation and Metrology Centre of Latvia, Technological High School “George Bibescu”, Craiova, Romania, The Secondary School of Technical and Electrical Engineering, Presov, Slovakia and Vocational Trade School, Burgas.

The project objective is to support vocational education and training towards better market relevance through development of curricula for e-training on important international standards. Training curricula on two of the most popular series of international standards for management systems - ISO/IEC 27000 on information security and ISO 31000 on risk management will be elaborated within the project. They will be provided for training in virtual environment.

The target group of the trainings is secondary VET schools students, students and adults wishing to continue their education/needing C-VET as well as teachers from the respective educational institutions. The trainers who have passed the training programmes will acquire knowledge and skills both in training on standards and in delivering training in virtual environment. Trainees will acquire basic knowledge in standardization and skills to apply standards in their professional activities.

The standards selected for training can be applied in practice in a wide range of organizations, regardless of their size, nature or organizational specifics and they are ones of the most widely used standards internationally.

BDS will be the partner responsible for the implementation of one of the intellectual outputs – development of a training curriculum on ISO 31000 and the Bureau of Standards of the Standardization, Accreditation and Metrology Centre of Latvia will be responsible for the curriculum on ISO 27000. Burgas Free University will lead the work for elaborating the virtual training environment.

The kick-off partnership meeting was attended by representatives of all participating organizations. Mr. Yasen Spasov, expert at the Erasmus+ National Agency (HRDC) and monitoring ISTRA project also attended the opening of the meeting. Mitko Mirchev, Peter Lozev, Rositsa Georgieva, Siyka Zlatanova and Vanina Pencheva participated on behalf of BDS.

The meeting began with presentation of each partner organization. Mr. Yanislav Zhelev - representative of Burgas Free University and Coordinator, made overview of the objectives, main activities, timetable and expected outcomes of the project. Rositsa Georgieva presented BDS activities and Peter Lozev presented ISO 31000 standard. ISO 27000 was presented by the manager of the Bureau of Standards of Latvia - Mr. Ingars Pilmanis. The functionality of the virtual working environment for teachers and students was also demonstrated. The rules for implementation of the project were explained to the participants. Members of the main working groups that will manage the project: Project Management Board, Educational and Methodological Team and Quality and Evaluation Team were selected. BDS representative was included in each of these groups.

Drafts of Project management strategy and Dissemination strategy were presented and a detailed “To Do” plan for the activities in the first year of the project lifetime with particular tasks, terms and responsible partners was developed.

Updated information about the project will be available on the project website, which is under development as well as on BDS website.

Everyone who would like to be included in the list of interested persons and organizations to obtain information on the developments under the project may contact: rositsa.georgieva@bds-bg.org.