The Second Hand Sector as the subject of this project encompasses the commercial trade and the non-profit sale of a range of consumer goods of any kind as well as the main tasks involved such as the acquisition, the processing and the refeeding of the merchandise into the closed loop of goods. The aim is to make the used goods available again for their original purpose of use.

The project concentrates on the classical trade, which excludes the view of auction portals and auction enterprises as well as stock exchanges for the exchange of used goods. In addition a clear delimitation is to be made to the trade with real estate, antiques, automobiles and capital goods that have their separate markets and/or interfaces to other markets (e.g. Property market).

Products

• Synthesis report on work and employment in the Second Hand Sector
• Best-Practice-report on qualification profiles, methods and concepts in the Second Hand Sector
• Guideline for the development of new qualification opportunities
• Concepts for the development of qualification profiles in the vocational initial training of the Second Hand Sector
• Quality standards for qualification concepts with focus on personnel development
• Proposals for a network design for the promotion of professionalisation processes
• A platform for the exchange of experiences and information

Research Methods

A vocational educational scientific research design will be applied for the analysis of the work and employment structures within the Second-Hand Sector. The methods includes:

• Sector analysis
• Case studies
• Expert workshops

It is the aim of vocational educational scientific research to access the contents of the world of work of a sector in a way that proposals for the shaping of educational processes can be worked out.

Implementation of the project objectives / tasks of the project partner:

In the individual partner countries the project partners take over the development tasks to optimize the qualification profile that has been developed in the last Leonardo project "QualiProSH “. The project partner should build up adequate networks to test individual modules for further training (especially sector-specific Qualification modules). The networks should be on one hand consist of institutions that offer qualification measures / training (e.g. enterprises that offer education and training or further training institutions) and which are able to implement the training and on the other hand the networks should be consist employees of second hand enterprises which need a qualification. (So the partners have to find partner of the second hand sector that are able to test the qualification modules.) After a short initial adaption to the country-specific features and a development phase on the basis of quality standards within the sector (e.g. creation of teaching and learning materials) the modules should be implemented and tested by the beneficiaries. They should be instructed, advised and supported by the project partners. The resulting outcomes of the testing phase should be evaluated and analyzed by the partners and optimized on the national level in cooperation with the user and on the European level in cooperation with all project partners. The main focus in this regard should be lie on a uniform European qualification.

Furthermore, the work-related quality standards should be developed based on the results of the project in a way that they are comparable across Europe and that they can be implemented in each country. With the help of the work-related quality standards should be mainly improved the quality of training and learning processes. In addition, the instruments to identify the needs of qualification or to do a quality check that have been developed within the framework of the project "QualiProSH" should be tested and optimized during the pilot phase of the project with the beneficiaries.