ACPD – the situation

The choice of possible career opportunities for people with hearing disabilities has not notably grown in the last years throughout Europe and the number of available qualifications is way below the wishes of the deaf and Hard-of-Hearing.

Nursing staff are in demand throughout Europe. According to figures from the Employment Agency (for Germany), the unemployment rate among nursing staff is below 2% and continues to decline. Due to the demographic development, the shortage of personnel in the nursing sector will continue to increase. The training of hearing impaired people can be a countermeasure to the increasing shortage of personnel and an example of functioning employee mobility and inclusion in the EU.

The VET opportunities for deaf and hearing impaired in the area of caretaking in Germany is possible, but often limited to ”caretaking assistant assistance” formally considered to be a starting qualification in the caretaking field.

Obtaining a diploma for people with disabilities is generally possible in Bulgaria/Romania, yet they are highly underrepresented due to a lack in accessibility. In Romania, only 1 in 7 hearing impaired/deaf are employed. There is no reliable statistics for Bulgaria as many are formally registered as employed to satisfy quota, however the estimated real unemployment in deaf is as high as 95%.

The local labour markets that have been dried out in the recent years due to the high demand for the personnel with caretaking and medical assistance qualifications in the more wealthy European countries might also profit from additional number of specialists, that can be trained according to the
highest standards. Education and training of hearing impaired people can also be a measure to strengthen regional structures, especially in countries which suffer from the emigration of qualified nursing and caretaking assistance staff.

The ACPD project takes this approach into account in a special way and is furthermore oriented towards the core competences of integrative teaching identified within the framework of a study by the European Agency.
Appreciation for the diversity of learners, support for all learners, cooperation with others and continuous professional development. These are necessary competences that are far from being reflected in all VET provision. It also reflects the strategic objectives of the Europe 2020 and ET2020 strategies, which identify inclusive education, equality, equity, non-discrimination and the promotion of civic competences as priority areas for European cooperation in education and training.

Bottom-up-collaboration between VET-providers, universities of applied sciences, special education needs association and deaf organisations/ associations is set as a priority of the current project. The project should encourage creation of transnational and cross-regional education networks working on enhancing social and professional inclusion of people with all kinds of disabilities. The INTAMT Academy in cooperation with its partners plans to analyse existing VET opportunities in nursing and care assistance, check feasibility of a full-scale training course for deaf and hard-of-hearing people and develop a set of basic recommendations for such a course. The project partner expressed a strong wish to collaborate beyond the framework of this project in the future, in order to develop a training course that could be applied regardless of territorial context due to clear described content modules and transparent evaluation criteria for assessing basic qualifications of the hearing-impaired staff in the field of nursing and caretaking services and to foster the professional inclusion of this category of people.

The main target groups of the project are:

  • Schools, VET-Centers and Universities of Applied Science for nursing and caretaking assistance professions, specialized schools and VET-centers providing education and professional training for deaf and hard-to-hearing persons
  • Vocational institutions for adult and lifelong learning
  • Rehabilitation centers
  • Deaf and hard-of-hearing associations
  • Institutions for nursing and care of the elderly and hospitals as well as affiliated professional and interest associations, training institutes and training certification bodies.