The toolkit is designed to provide VET teachers with practical tools and strategies to support students with fewer opportunities, ensuring they can achieve their learning outcomes and transition smoothly into the job market. 

The toolkit has an inclusive education focus, the practices included in the toolkit aim to address various barriers faced by students, such as disabilities, economic challenges, and cultural obstacles, promoting equity and inclusion in education.

The toolkit highlights the importance of collaborative development: it was developed through a collaborative process involving partners from Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro. This collaboration ensured that the practices are relevant and adaptable to different educational contexts.

The practices introduced in the toolkit have been tested in practice, with teachers integrating these new elements into their teaching. This hands-on approach ensures that the strategies are effective and practical.

The toolkit has a focus on teachers’ competence. The aim is to provide examples of practices that can help teachers to better support students with fewer opportunities. Including everybody will conclude to enhance students’ confidence and independence as well as social interaction skills. Practical, inclusive strategies and methods are important to give both students and teachers a positive impact.

Structural work has also been carried out in schools to promote social inclusion. For example in Montenegro they have identified the students with special educational needs with the practical teaching coordinator and the pedagogue. After that they established contact with most of the social partners where students with special needs do their professional practice. Doing so, they managed to find persons to act as personal supervisors for students with special needs. In addition to this, they also have constant online communication with those persons for example in training them to support the students.

The new process for workplace supervision involves coordinating with teachers who supervise the professional practice of students with special needs. These teachers regularly monitor the   progress and how to communicate with the personal supervisors.

Another example from Bosnia Herzegovina highlights a new approach of building a multiprofessional team to work with learners with fewer opportunities. One task of the team is to plan how to involve all students in the activities. 

Finally, we have put together a set of recommendations on how to promote inclusion. Equality and equity do not mean that everyone should be treated the same. In fact, it is better to talk about equality of opportunity, because, properly understood, equality creates equal opportunities for all, regardless of their background. 

An equal learning community is created and strengthened when all members of the community are aware of what equality and equity are all about. The common plan aims to support students’ opportunities to develop and feel fully integrated into society. Strengthening equality and equity will increase employment, skills, and well-being.

Inclusion can be achieved through a variety of teaching methods, support measures and teaching arrangements that enable students to learn without barriers, regardless of their disabilities. Organizations should have a plan to promote inclusion, and it is important that students are also involved in its development.

Equality and equity also apply to accessibility, which involves creating a safe and accepting environment where everyone can work equally, with access to services, tools, information, and decision-making.

Practical Examples of Promoting Inclusion 

1. Selection of students based on equality and equity principles, providing learning opportunities also for disadvantaged people
2. Inclusion through teaching methods: Inclusion can be achieved through various teaching methods and support measures that enable barrier-free learning. Students participate in planning their own studies, everyone has the opportunity to learn according to their abilities. This also means attention to respect for human rights, support for language, culture and identity, encouragement of social interaction, equality and international learning, staff induction.
3. Ensuring physical accessibility of learning environments, exploiting the potential of digitalisation
4. Attitudinal, social, and psychological accessibility, considering different cultures, supporting the involvement of students and parents in the evaluation and development of activities, e.g. feedback surveys for students and parents.