The Institute of Entrepreneurship Development in cooperation with other 7 European organizations contacted a research collecting information and data related to SSE in IVET curricula in order to “map” the existing situation in Europe.
The report is an intellectual output resulting from the project “Social and Solidarity Economy in Europe: affirming a new paradigm through IVET curricula innovation” (September 2016 – August 2018), co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme. The countries directly involved in the project are: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Romania. The common template explores various aspects, both in terms of context (historical, normative, social, political) and of content, that lead to assert, through comparative methodology, the need to develop a common set of IVET training modules on SSE.
Social Solidarity Economy
The Social Solidarity Economy is increasingly understood as a promising socioeconomic model in the EU and in various parts of the world. This survey asserts SSE as a movement gathering inclusive values and practices, a transformative approach towards all socio-economic activities, promoting democracy at work and in the community, social justice and ecological awareness of the planet’s limits. SSE is an alternative to the current economic paradigm which is no longer providing answers to the people’s deep aspirations and the planet.
Education and training for Social Solidarity Economy are fundamental factors for this change of paradigm. The general diagnosis strikingly highlights that SSE is hardly present in training curricula, with no explicit mention of SSE in most, if not all, countries within the IVET systems, due to the fact that SSE is a recent development and only partially recognized.
One of the main conclusions is that the SSE needs to foster a pedagogical and advocacy approach towards IVET as well as other levels of education, from downstream all the way up to the national qualification frameworks and European strategies, starting with the curricular innovation, providing young people better understanding and detecting potential disposition for SSE processes and careers.
Finally, training programmes for trainers on Social Solidarity Economy should also be developed in compliance with the territorial differences as well as the different accredited institutions. Trainers should be granted the right/duty to access continuous training updates (tools and innovative pedagogical methodologies about active and participatory learning, SSE theories and practices to be integrated into the learning units of their programmes, etc.).
