In Europe, the Outdoor Leisure sector is recognised as a fast growing industry.
Indeed, it is easier nowadays to travel from one country to another, people tend to benefit from more and more free time, and the whole year round, holiday-makers from all over Europe are increasingly seeking for active type vacations such as biking, hiking and mountaineering, skiing and snowboarding, sailing and windsurfing and many more outdoor activities. Due to this rapid growth and change, the current workforce is now under skilled to meet increased customers and business demand.
As a consequence, more and more entrepreneurs are setting up private companies to provide this developing clientele with the services they are expecting and outdoor leisure businesses are therefore actively seeking for competent qualified outdoor animators who unfortunately are difficult to find on the European labour market.
At the same time, more and more young people are entering the outdoor leisure industry, but improve difficulties in finding the right training programs and qualifications to become animator in outdoor activities and also face a lack of cohesion between the different countries.
Therefore, the Outdoors are facing a problematic situation:
-On the one hand, the demand for leisure services is growing and hence the employment potential,
-Potential employees are trying to come into the outdoor industry but do not find proper training,
-And on the other hand, corresponding Vocational Education Training is practically non-existent or very limited in the sector depending on the countries. There is a current lack of co-ordination and implementing control at European level, which clearly limits staff mobility and employment potential.
And so it can be concluded that although the market is growing, employers and employees have difficulties matching each others requirements because Vocational Education Training is at best unclear and at worse non existent in the Outdoors sector in Europe.
Over the last 2 years, national Outdoor Employers Unions representatives, some of them regrouped under the umbrella of EASE (European Association of Sports Employers) a partner of the project, have consequently discussed the necessity of organising the outdoor sector in terms of Vocational Training, through a clear definition of the needs of employers in terms of positions to be held and of employees qualifications and competences.
Various meetings were organised and a group of European Employers Union, Training Providers, and European organisations was constituted to discuss on the development of the quality of the Vocational Education Training system and practices to improve the Labour Market in the outdoor sector in Europe. Led by UCBL, SNEPSALPA and SPRITO Directions, this growing group of key national and European partners from the Outdoors industry decided to meet in Lyon in June 2005 and confirmed the need for the Outdoor Industry to develop and promote the implementation of a harmonised framework to clarify the situation of Vocational Education Training across Europe. In relation with the increase of the clients demands in this growing sector, the group agreed to develop a Leonardo proposal together to improve the VET in Europe.
WHAT:
The specific aims of the project are:
qTo develop and validate the Industry Occupational Map for the Outdoor sector across Europe.
qTo research and produce Individual Job Descriptions and profiles for the current job activities of Outdoor professionals in the partner countries. Each of these Individual Job Description needing to include: General Description, Basic Tasks, Entry Requirements, Competence Fields in terms of level as per the new European Qualification Framework (EQF).
qTo develop and agree the Industry Functional Map for the whole Outdoor Sector across Europe.
qTo produce and sign off a Competence Framework with technical and non technical competences (Environmental Competences in the Blue, Green and White sectors) for Outdoor Animators in Europe.
qTo explore the Feasibility of Developing a Verification Process to validate qualifications of professionals in the Outdoor sector within each country involved in the project based on the Copenhagen Declaration supported by the new EQF.
qTo research the Labour Market to establish number of enterprises and employment patterns and the Vocational Training Systems, organisations and programmes linked to the outdoor sector in the partner countries.
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