Preceding projects and MentorCert produce curricula for SME mentor candidates who wish to become general mentors of Small-and-Medium-sized-businesses AND to be recognised for accomplishing supplementary trainings in special sectors of entrepreneurship.

The mastery of the partnerships ensured the quality of the courses but the trainees having succeeded in finishing the courses could not receive any national, international and even less European recognition. In order to remedy this the old partners invited EFCoCert, a new partner with the European mission to develop and manage competence certification schemes for non-regulated professions in Europe. These certification procedures intend to provide concerned people with recognition and validation of their formal and non-formal learning, ensuring a European transparency of their qualification.

In the Intellectual Output 3, the first step on the way to mentor certification is taken: the results of the above mentioned mentor trainings and the analysis on the levels of mentorship in IO1 are to be transformed into criteria of mentor assessment. The work programme consists in establishing the competence matrixes, joint to different levels and sectors of mentorship, and generate the system of assessment criteria which can be inserted into a certification process.
This transformation provides criteria to be used into a sophisticated blended-examination procedure to be experienced in further cooperation of the partners. The quality of IO3 (and that of the forthcoming certification scheme) is ensured, beyond the mastery of the partners, by the international Expert Committee (see: in IO4) composed of interested parties and accredited certification bodies from all over Europe. This makes the impact of IO3 (and IO4) significant on the European entrepreneurial milieu and to facilitate the transfer the results to new partner countries in Europe.

Work package:
Start Date: 01-11-2017     End Date: 31-01-2020     Languages: English

Completed:  IO3 – Criteria of Business Mentor assessment

After taking into account the deliverables of previous projects concerning the skill card of a mentor adapted to the managers of small and medium sized companies allowing the design of training courses, partners worked on specifying a skill card adapted to the measurement of a business mentor experience acquired through field experience.

The work carried out for the design of the training courses was very useful as a basis for further development; the sharing between partners and with the members of the expert committee allowed the partners to have a first step in the formulation of skills.

The next stage of reflection on the criteria for the verification of these competences sometimes made it necessary to revise the wording of the competences, or at least to specify them to allow a clear and unambiguous appreciation of them by the examiners of a certification body. The expertise of the partner EFCoCert (P6) has made it possible to adjust these elements in a relevant way and adapted to the constraints of the examination.

The IO3 documents (Skill Card matrix & Assessment Criteria) present for all key competencies:
1. Examples of different possible modalities to provide proof of the acquired competence.
2. Elements of daily work that can be used to demonstrate the acquired competence.

This document was circulated to the committee of experts (IO4) at the end of the project; they made some comments and adjustments which were taken into account before the final phase of the small test carried out in France with 2 experienced business mentors (Annex).

This mini pilot of the examination (See: Annex) also allowed to validate that the envisaged evidence (documents, folders for confirming the performance of skills and competences) brought a total satisfaction for the examiners and allowed on the other hand each candidate to prepare in a thoughtful way the interview of the certification examination.

The IO3 activities followed the expected process:
- IO3/A1: Definition of criteria of business mentor assessment
- IO3/A2: Development of mentor assessment tools and materials
- IO3/A3: Final version of the tools and materials after expert evaluations.
Final IO3 outcomes are available as attachments.

The duration was longer than expected related to the connection with the IO4 activities and the collection of the members of the Expert Committee. This was helpful to ensure the quality of the results.