Volunteer engagement of young people will be certified all over Europe from now on: The qualifications acquired in youth initiatives, youth congresses and youth projects will be documented with a youth pass.

The project Youthpass intends to offer devices for the description and verification of nonformal learning processes. It is de­signed to be applicable all over Europe in combination with "Youth in Action".

 

Participants of activities funded within the frame-work of the program can orderly summarize their activities and describe learning effects in company with the project leader afterwards. The most important basis for the development of the Youthpass lies in the conviction that active participation in projects and activities of "youth in action" has a positive effect on the personal and occupational development of young people. The quality of learning in the different parts of the program shall become more pre­sentable and also, sealed and signed, be helpful in applying for jobs – inside and outside Europe.

For the EU commission, the Youthpass enqueues itself into a line of plans dealing with "authentication and qualification of learning and education processes". But, first of all, the Youthpass is meant as a certificate for nonformal learning, namely the acquisition of key qualifications outside school and other institutions.

The Youthpass can be given to young people between 13 and 30 in two different sectors at the moment.

In 2006 the first test phases were already completed. Under the project management and development of "youth in Europe"'s Salto Team, approximately 150 organisations from numerous European countries made first experiences.

With the start of the new program "Youth in Action" this year, the Youthpass will be introduced for the first time. Both for national agencies and project initiators, accordant training offers and handbooks will be provided to help putting the program into action.

Further information on the Youthpass:

SALTO - YOUTH Training & Cooperation
Rita Bergstein

+49 228 9506236

rita@salto-youth.net


Comment:

Youthpass: Political Peck or Authentic Acknowlegdement

How can 150.000 adolesents per year in 31 countries obtain an individual certificate showing the quality of their collaboration in a youth congress or the European Volunteer Service? And how or what do you grade? Which matters are central? And, particularly: Doesn't nonformal learning become a mere copy of formal learning through such an assessment process? The creators of the Youthpass had to deal intensively with the last question in particular.
On the one hand it is the set objective of the Youthpass to appreciate not the formal but the nonformal learning which happens outside any institutions. On the other hand, a certificate itself is clear evidence of institutionalised assessment patterns.

Although critics of the project will probably put forth the latter against it, one thing seems to be clear: If the Youthpass itself should also include certain elements of formal learning, one should not see this as a contradiction by nature. As soon as one aims to certify young people's engagement officially it entails using methods and ways not unknown to formal learning.

This should, in my opinion, not be seen as a constraint but as an opportunity. Exactly because young people are aware of the meaning of certificates they present an apt possibility to assess qualifications and qualities outside school. When the ef­forts of young people become certified and thus official this should not be taken as a contradiction to the original meaning of the youth pass but as the opportunity to award efforts in a way that they gain value for outsiders.

Désirée