Vocational Education Scholarship Program (VESP)

Overall Description

This action, implemented by Luminus Technical University College (LTUC), aims to provide 280 Syrian refugees and 60 vulnerable Jordanians with:

·        BTEC Level 5 Diploma, and

·        Bachelor’s degree program. In this action, diploma graduates of previous projects (EDU-SYRIA I, EDU-SYRIA II, EDU-SYRIA II Additional, & EDU-SYRIA III), among others, are allowed to bridge to a bachelor’s degree program. This is a way to build on one of the achievements of previous projects, where financial, human, and social capital were invested. Further, this transition, from high school to an associate degree study program and from an associate degree to a bachelor’s program, perfectly exemplifies the Education Pathway Model.

Potential Majors

Various up-to-date majors were offered and are to be offered by LTUC in the VESP action, including (but not limited to):

·        Logistics and supply chain techniques

·        Management of Hotels, Restaurants, and Events

·        Culinary Arts Administration

·        Interior Architecture and Decoration

·        Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

·        Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence, Geomatics

·        Fashion design

·        Interior design

·        Dental Industry Techniques

·        Engineering of Automotive Technology

Duration of Study

The duration of each study sub-program, diploma, and bridging to a bachelor’s degree, ranges between 2 and 2.5 years.

VESP’s Benefits

·        Enrollees, Syrian refugees and underserved Jordanians, will be granted a similar amount of 400€ term-based stipend to mitigate their lack of finance during their period of study.

·        Enrollees, Syrian refugees and underserved Jordanians, can benefit from the LTUC’s library equipped with many books of latest knowledge in the developed world.

·        Enrollees, Syrian refugees and underserved Jordanians, can benefit from a special space called EDU-SYRIA Corner. Students, from the project and the general students’ body, might use to study or collaborate on projects and do other school assignments tasks.

 

 

General Information about VESP

The VESP meets two goals: Firstly, it provides Syrian refugees and vulnerable Jordanians with higher education opportunities. Secondly, it maximizes their chances to secure a full-time job upon graduation, better, the potential of those graduates to launch their own start-up business. The last outcome will be achieved by the end of the action, as those prospectus students will acquire vocational education that is a reflection of the industry and market requirements and will be prepared with the necessary set of competencies and skills to ensure their readiness for the workplace.

Further, the fairly- short duration of the VESP makes it feasible for many. It can be embedded in these youth career and life plans without taking a toll of 4 years as the case with the bachelor’s degree programs. Based on prior involvements with Syrian refugees who applied and finished this program, a sum of 1585 Syrian graduates of EDU-SYRIA projects with 55% of Syrian female graduates (up to September 2023), such a platform was perfect for them especially Syrian women who are tied with familial circumstances and constraints. Further, those graduates can take their acquired set of vocational abilities to Syria to rebuild their lives as well as their country once the war ends.

EDU-SYRIA is taking into consideration the nature of Syrian refugees who settled in the camps versus the ones who settled outside the camps, for the current project (EDU-SYRIA III) a ratio of 1:9 will be the rule for VESP. In the earlier versions of EDU-SYRIA I, II & II Additional, the ratios of in-camp/out-of-camp were 1:9, 1:18, and 1:22, respectively. It is worth mentioning that there are three official Syrian refugee camps: Zataari, Mrajeeb Al-Fhood (also known as Emirati Jordanian and Azraq. However, to fulfill the target ratio, of 1:9, the counts of Syrian refugees who meet the selection criteria should be available in the camps.