City of Dublin Education and Training Board’s purpose is to develop, provide and support high quality person-centred learning opportunities for young people and adults in Dublin City. It has a wide remit to deliver education at first and second level as well as all adult education and training. The sixteen Education and Training Boards in Ireland are public education providers established under the Irish Government. City of Dublin ETB is a multi-service and multi-centre education and training provider with geographical remit for Dublin City and is therefore one of the largest Education and Training Boards (ETBs) in Ireland.

City of Dublin ETB works with a wide range of target populations and age groups: Community national schools (Primary) Second Level and Youth Services along with all types of Further education and Training. We are also responsible for supporting further and higher education students all over Ireland through SUSI, the national awarding authority for student grants.

Even at European level, the Irish VET sector, more often referred to as FET (Further Education and Training) is characterised by a high degree of diversity in the type of programme, level, and learner. Further education and training programmes can be general, vocational, or mixed and delivered at levels 1 to 5/6 as per the European Framework of qualifications.

All of our student programmes in the VET sector in Ireland involve a period of mandatory work-based learning, this can happen locally in Ireland or it can happen in cooperation with our European partners as part of an Erasmus plus KA1 mobility program. While our tutors and partner employers are quite skilled at managing and accessing the specific vocational skills development of the students, it is much more difficult to measure how we incorporate and plan for inclusion, digital skills development and sustainability as part of that work based learning experience.

Teachers and employers are often making value judgements against subjective criteria in the absence of any baseline study. The idea that we could develop a Continuous Professional Development (CPD) programme for this purpose, that is understood and independently quality assured and valued as a stand-alone micro credential was very attractive to our organisation, as indeed was the opportunity to develop and certify our tutors and employers to deliver such an outcome.

In conclusion this STREAM project will benefit all our VET staff and partner employers as it will enable them to embrace and appreciate the value of obtaining the micro credentials incorporating an awareness of Inclusion, Digital and Sustainable development into our work based learning for all our learners.