Rapid technological development requires professionals with excellent analytical chemistry skills to monitor technological processes and their impact on the environment, and to control food safety and people’s health. Vocational education in Europe, especially in chemistry-based and chemistry-related disciplines, is undergoing a crisis, reflected in low enrolment rates, under funding causing a lack of adequate analytical instrumentation, changes in structure and the motivation of students.

This project aims at contributing to the better quality and attractiveness of VET in chemistry-related and chemistry-based disciplines by implementing small-scale low-cost spectrometers that can be easily upgraded into other analytical instruments, e.g., gas and liquid chromatographs, into school practice in Poland, Slovenia and the UK, together with hands-on teaching units and several hands-on experiments that can increase the motivation in students and contribute to better learning outcomes.

The partnership comprises the University of Ljubljana, the University of Gdansk and the University of Bristol, and five Slovenian vocational schools with VET programs in chemistry, laboratory medicine and food processing. The partnership has expertise in analytical chemistry, chemistry education and outreach programs to promote science.

The outcomes of the project will be innovative, small-scale, low-cost spectrometers and teaching units “A hands-on approach to visible spectrometry” and “A hands-on approach to chromatography” and selected hands-on experiments implemented into VET practices in Poland and Slovenia, and integrated into the outreach activities of the UK partner. In addition to this there will be the trilingual web page with 20 newly developed hands-on experiments and a report on the evaluation of the responses of target groups on the implementation of hands-on approaches into school practice and outreach programmes in terms of the impact on the motivation of students and learning outcomes.

The impact envisaged is a contribution to the higher quality and attractiveness of VET programmes in chemistry-based and chemistry-related disciplines and outreach activities, and the exploitation and valorisation of the hands-on approaches to analytical chemistry ensured through cascade effects.