|
||||||||||||||
Motivation for Further Education Through Language Learning (Sweden) Västerås folkhögskola (Folk High School) is owned by the Swedish labour movement and located in the central parts of Västerås, Sweden. Västerås folkhögskola pursues the view of man, society and knowledge shared by the labour movement, and is permeated by explicit participation in the community. The school offers a variety of different educational courses, among which is Study motivating course – SMF. The SMF-course is a government comission with Arbetsförmedlingen (The Employment Service) and Folkbildningsådet (Swedish National Council of Ault Education, is the collective name for the activities conducted by the country’s folk high schools and study associations in the form of courses, study circles and cultural activities). The commission states that Folkbildningsådet allocates the number of participants placed in each of the Folk High Schools eligible for state funding. The aim of the SMF-course is to motivate participants to enter (or re-enter) the regular national school program.
HISTORY The aim of the SMF-course is to motivate participants to enter (or re-enter) the regular national school program. The target group is people age 16 or more who lack upper secondary qualification and/or general entry acquirements for higher education, and are registered as unemployed at the employment service (Arbetsförmedlingen). A person referred to SMF need enough knowledge of Swedish to be able to enter the regular national school program after SMF is finished. Target groups for the Pilot projects are explained below in the report. Arbetsförmedlingen dictates who is eligible for SMF-course. An assesment is made based on the needs of the individual jobseeker. The course runs for three months, and is meant to give the participants preparation and motivation to re-enter either the school system or the job market. Central to the SMF course are study techniques, studies in civics, Swedish, English and maths. Job experience internships is not allowed. The school works together with the student to create an individual plan where the need for further studies and/or work training are identified. This report describes two pilots, Pilot 1 and Pilot 2. Pilot 1 was carried out 201909-201911, and Pilot 2 201903-201905. Early in the work with Pilot 1, a new target group was identified. This target group was not in the original commission from Arbetsförmedlingen (The Employment Service). The target group were people who lack sufficient language skills and had an illiterate school background from their home country, incomplete SFI studies (Swedish For Immigrants, is the national free Swedish language course. SFI is directed towards people who lack basic knowledge in Swedish. The program is designed for non-native speakers who are registered as nationals. Sfi consists of three different levels: Sfi 1, Sfi 2 and Sfi 3, aiming at students’ different backgrounds, prerequisites and goals. Sfi includes courses A-B-C-D. In order to address these difficulties mentioned above, and to develop and provide opportunities for the new target group; a new approach was created that resulted in a sub-course (Pilot 2) to the SMF-course. The development of the Swedish language was one of the main objectives of the Pilot 2, the opportunity to be able to complete SFI studies and to give the participants preparation and motivation to re-enter either the school system or the job market. There was no formal agreement for Pilot 1 and 2 described above. The school contacted the local Employment Service and the previously mentioned, in turn, invited participants to a briefing; the meeting was held at the Employment Service's premises. Participants showed an interest in the course. We started Pilot 2 on March 2, 2019. For the participants to get full information and a clear image of the course, an introduction meeting was conducted with the following content:
The participant is then placed in existing SFI groups. This way, the participant would be placed at the correct language level and could continue working with the language development at the pace the participant needed. Classes varied depending on the language level. However, all levels had the same activities in the form of Swedish studies in the mornings, orientation and motivation-enhancing activities were organized in the afternoons (civics, job market information, health promotion, digital literacy, etc.).
INNOVATION The main objective of this course was to reach participants who have been living in Sweden for a long time and previously participated in SFI- courses but for various reasons have not finished their education. The course is also aimed at participants who have passed the SFI education but lack the language skills, which contributed in turn, in lack of integration in the Swedish society. The above does not only affect the individual, but also his/her surroundings such as family and society when the ability to enter the job market has declined. The method is aimed primarily to practice the language in practical situations. Daily discussions interspersed with civic studies, health promotion, study visits, digital literacy and other things that it may be necessary to increase the level of knowledge in the community. The aim is to provide an opportunity to find the desire to start studying, or to resume studies that have previously been discontinued, find self-confidence and motivation to create a plan for the future increasing and improving the chances of getting a job. The purpose is thus to spread our folkhögskola pedagogy, human and knowledge view for interested educators and organizations, and take part in our seven partner countries' methods and ideas for the development and improvement of adult education – so we can all benefit from each other's knowledge and results.
TARGET GROUP The target group were people who lack sufficient language skills and had an illiterate school background from their home country, incomplete SFI studies (Swedish For Immigrants, is the national free Swedish language course). SFI is directed towards people who lack basic knowledge in Swedish. The program is designed for non-native speakers who are registered as nationals. Sfi consists of three different levels: Sfi 1, Sfi 2 and Sfi 3, aiming at students’ different backgrounds, prerequisites ,and goals. Sfi includes courses A-B-C-D. The target group was registered at the employment service as a job seeker. 13 participants assigned to Pilot 1, created a homogeneous SMF language group; despite their disparity in the Swedish language skills. Difficulties, as well as the problems identified in Pilot 1 led to the creation of Pilot 2 with a different starting point, strategy, and placement. Both target groups had a common problem, they were far from the job market. This caused a lock-in effect and difficulties for the employment service to find measures for them. Pilot 2 provided the new target group a new opportunity to learn the language, as well as the ability for the employment service to recommend the study-motivated course focusing on the language and combined with civics, information about the job market, health promotion, digital literacy, etc.
CONTACTING & MOTIVATING The intake of the participants was through, the employment service, each designated participants had to meet certain requirements to participate in the course. The participant should be registered in the establishment program, the job and development guarantee program (both are programs within the employment service). The participants had the right to compensation from either the employment service or the Social Insurance Office depending on the program the participant is enrolled in. For the participant to be entitled to compensation, he/she needed to attend and participate in the course. If for any reason the participant was absent, the compensation would be reduced. no leave is given by the school, it is managed by the employment service. The participant is responsible for reporting his/her absence to the employment service monthly. The employment service reviews the reports submitted, by contacting the school.
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
