Carpet manufacturing is an important field in Europe in terms of economical and employment figures. Turkey is capable of manufacturing %20 of whole world’s carpet need while whole Europe’s manufacturing share is approximately over %45. It is estimated that the number of employment in the carpet manufacturing sector is over half a million people across European countries such as Turkey, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. Although being a great sector, it suffers from several issues such as the lack of qualified technical staff. Furthermore, although carpet manufacturing is very widespread in Europe, there is not an existent definition of some carpet related vocations such as carpet manufacturing operators. Accordingly, ISCED, the main catalogue of vocation definitions and curriculum, do not have required competency definitions for such mentioned vocations. Therefore, graduates of relevant institutions do not have the required practical experience until they are employed in a sectoral enterprise. They have the required competencies informally through practical experience and few number of in-service training facilities in the company. This causes several negative results such as increase in overhead costs, reduction in the effectiveness of the operations, economic losses and diminish of the competitiveness of the companies.

To address the above mentioned problems, the Project consortium will develop a novel curriculum for vocations exist in the carpet manufacturing sector in order to formally recognize these vocations. And secondly, ICT-based learning tools such an e-learning platform and interactive DVD based software will be constructed to present the content. The benefits of interactive online and offline system will help overcome the major issues caused by the lack of practical experience.

Expected impact on target group(s) are as follows:

a) Trainers / Educators of the relevant VET institutions including project partners and institutions that will be reached within the project lifetime will have a proper curriculum for carpet production process. Thus, graduates will be more competent for their jobs. Relevant sector will overcome difficulties in finding qualified technical staff. Then, overhead costs related to product deficits, production ineffectiveness will be removed.

b) Difficulties in training related to the expensive and continuously advancing hardware/equipment will be tolerated and overcome. Therefore, VET institutions will be enabled to offer training on machinery based carpet manufacturing. This option may also activate independent VET courses that specialize on carpet manufacturing by use of project products as blended learning material.

c) Companies that use the e-learning environment will have a good in-service training material. This will also contribute to the effectiveness of the sector companies.

d) New graduates and unemployed individuals that are planning to enter into the carpet manufacturing sector will have the opportunity to get a free service that enables them to perform self-paced, fast and effective learning.