READY FOR OUR LIVES Erasmus Project

Project Title

READY FOR OUR LIVES

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

This project of strategic partnership involved the students and teachers from 7 secondary schools of various types from the Czech Republic, Portugal, Turkey, Slovenia, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania.

The project came from the needs of young people to develop their entrepreneurial skills, to be better prepared for the entry to the labour market, to improve the knowledge of languages and develop communication skills. It was also based on the presumptions that European countries appear in the times of economical problems, the unemployment rate of young people is at a high level, young people have trouble with finding jobs, motivation of young people to succeed at the job market is decreasing, and lack of language competences is one of the barriers at the European labour market.

The project promoted entrepreneurship education and social entrepreneurship among the students which made them better prepared for their working life. We also used more effective teaching methods, e.g. combining formal and non-formal methods or CLIL to get higher achievement of students in basic skills. The project fostered multidisciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches as it combined economical subjects with general subjects such as foreign languages, social sciences, geography or drama education.

The project combined work on entrepreneurial topics with work on social topics connected with jobs. The project also combined economical topics with general topics to made young people better prepared for their future lives. It was not focused only on entrepreneurial tasks but significantly involved also other subjects such as geography, social sciences, drama education, ecological education etc., which created an excellent and very important complex. Through this project the students improved and developed communication and language competences, entrepreneurial competences, digital competences and social competences. The students also increased their cultural awareness, sense of entrepreneurship and motivation to succeed at the labour market.

The work on the project included various methods of work: workshops, discussions, debates, excursions, role plays, creating and carrying out surveys, presentations of the results and the work, meetings with local entrepreneurs and local representatives. We dealt with various topics connected with jobs and labour market, e.g. unemployment, writing CV, job interviews, starting a firm, creating a business plan, presentation of a firm, promotion and advertising as well as with social matters such as gender issues, the questions of age at the labour market, employment of handicapped people, the matters of bossing, mobbing, racism, immigration etc. Within the three-year project run there were two transnational meetings held, the first one at the beginning of the project in Karviná, Czech Republic, and the second one at the end of the project in Porto, Portugal. During the project there were seven project meetings in all partner schools, each school hosted their partners once.

The project reached the following results: an increase of students´ entrepreneurial competences and their motivation in the field of entrepreneurship, improvement of their ability to write a good CV and apply for a job not only in their country but in other European countries, too, gaining higher practise and experience with job interviews, better knowledge of how to make a business plan, increased motivation to start an own firm, increased awareness of the connection between entrepreneurship and social matters, broken stereotypes about gender issues, racism, immigration, social exclusion, handicapped people, improved language competences both in everyday English and business English etc.

During the project the participants created and carried out questionnaires and surveys that were published online for public, powerpoint presentations on the various entrepreneurship, job and social tasks, newsletters about the project activities which were published on the project website, mini-brochure about the project, website of the project which is freely accessible for wide public, e-Twinning project among the partner schools, evaluation forms, photo-documentation and video-documentation etc. Moreover, we published e-magazines which are also available for wider public through the project webpage. We also made a business multilingual mini-dictionary which is, freely accessible for public, too.

The project showed high impact on students, teachers, entrepreneurs and schools as well as expected impact on local, regional, and national level. The project, its results, methods and activities used are sustainable, too, and can be used both by partner schools or any other interested schools in the future.

All partner schools shared their duties and responsibilities throughout the whole run of the project equally. All partner schools also involved participants with fewer opportunities both in project work and mobilities.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 245400 Eur

Project Coordinator

Obchodní akademie s.r.o. & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Ozel Adalya Anadolu Lisesi
• Agrupamento de Escolas Alexandre Herculano – Porto
• Istituto A. Volta
• Rigas 9 vakara (mainu) vidusskola
• Srednja ekonomsko-poslovna sola Koper
• Kedainiai Sviesioji Gymnasium