Vocational education and training in Slovakia is undergoing significant systemic changes that have transformed „school based education system" towards "company based education system", in order to align practice with the knowledge, skills and competencies of graduates of secondary vocational schools. Education reform, improvement and development of dual vocational education can significantly lead to reducing the high unemployment of graduates of vocational schools, which is one of the key national priorities of the Slovak Government. An analogous situation in the field of vocational education is in the Czech Republic, where a debate among stakeholders is ongoing. In the contrary, the German-speaking countries have dual system at place historically for many decades. For this reason, the project partners have been chosen from these countries, and are active in the field of vocational education in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Austria. The project is complementary to the national project of development of vocational education and training (in Slovak called "RSOV") realized by Ministry of Education SR, State Institute for Vocational Education, and employer associations. The innovation part of the project arises in its process of creating outputs, as it engages diversity of key actors involved in the vocational education who operate in different sectors (schools, companies, professional organisations, state representatives). The project aims to help bridge the mismatch between the fundamental and cross-cutting skills, propose measures to improve the quality of the institutions involved in the dual education and a methodology and training course for instructors who are or will prepare students for their future professions. Target groups are primarily small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from the energy and electrical engineering fields (we aim to reach nearly 1,000 SMEs in SK, CZ, AT) from the network of project partner institutions, the professional associations of electro - energy sector (cca 15 organizations from the CZ, SK, AT) and secondary vocational technical schools (50 schools in Slovakia and Czech Republic), which together play a critical role in the effective functioning of the dual system. The project will create three intellectual outputs. The first is the concept of development of the dual system for small and medium-sized enterprises in the electrical engineering and energy field. Methodology of the output consists of qualitative and quantitative surveys (questionnaires and personal interviews) among small and medium businesses, employers, professional associations from the electrical and energy industry in Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic. The aim is to identify, quantify and analyse the costs and benefits of training students inside of the company, to describe various possible evaluation and assessment systems of pupils involved in the dual system, and how to apply them in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In addition, the analytical part should lead to proposition of legislative changes into Slovak and possibly also in the Czech legal system as well as proposition of measures to increase the motivation of small and medium-sized enterprises to enter in the dual system. During the course of the conception we plan to organise six workshops with the relevant representatives of VET from different sectors in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The second output will consist of updating of the six workbooks in terms of content and form, and their distribution to the vocational schools in the form of e-books. The third output is to design and test methodology for the training of trainers and prepare materials for the accreditation of training course for instructors in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Well trained instructors are also one of the cornerstones of an effective functioning of VET. We expect a deeper dialogue between key partners in VET in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which can lead to approval of proposed legislative changes, with particular emphasis on the involvement of small and medium-sized firms as well as completing administrative capacities in all key partners involved in VET (companies, professional organizations, educational organizations providing services, technical STS). The project may result in a creation of a new institution that will provide services to the corporate sector such as: management of the “apprentices market”, selection of apprentices, the production of infomaterials for instructors, training materials on educational programs, acquisition of companies for the dual education, organizing trainings (vocational, educational) for instructors to help ensure rotation of students, support companies in managing funds for trainings, certifications, marketing-specific learning and teaching tasks and many other areas, in which firms do not have the capacity. Total requested budget is 269 612.00 EUR. Duration of the project is scheduled for 30 months.