Student Work experience In Real Life Erasmus Project

Project Title

Student Work experience In Real Life

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

CONTEXT: NEED TO REKINDLE THE SPARK AMONG VET STUDENTS
The youth unemployment rate in the EU is very high and the consortium wanted to tackle the problem from the perspective of vocational education and training. There is a necessity to rekindle the spark among VET students to a dynamic and positive attitude towards the possibilities of enterprising behaviour, networking skills and pro-active attitude. With the help of SWIRL project, the partners created tools that would enable VET institutes and teachers to empower young people in VET. The SWIRL approach in vocational education entails boosting the confidence of the students and educating them to investigate the opportunities of their own networks. SWIRL helps the young people to create professional networks and find employment.

OBJECTIVES
The SWIRL project enhanced the development of teaching and learning methods and contents, to ensure students gain appropriate competences for future working life and make learning more attractive. SWIRL supported new forms of working through new forms of learning: letting VET students collect, execute and present real-job tasks using the latest pedagogical and digital tools. Concretely, SWIRL aimed to
• Empower VET students and boost their confidence and self-esteem by letting them realise the power of their own networks. SWIRL connected the students personal identity to their professional identity.
• Develop students’ competences for future working life by increasing their sense of responsibility, networking skills, entrepreneurial mind-set and pro-active attitude.
• Increase the pool of work based learning opportunities for students.
• Develop VET teachers’ educational and pedagogical skills by enabling VET school teachers to work with their students on Student Initiated Case Study Collection in cooperation with externals and by supporting them and providing them the necessary knowledge, tools and networks.
• Use students network to develop and increase the VET-Business partnerships.
• Increase the quality of the execution of Company Assignments by students by truly engaging the student on a personal and professional level.

PARTICIPANTS
• SWIRL was primarily aimed at students in VET colleges. Student from various fields of education participated in the SWIRL programme, creating a cross-sector approach and allowing students from different backgrounds to learn from each other. During the lifespan of the project, 350 students participated in the programme.
• Secondly,SWIRL was aimed at VET teachers and VET colleges. Altogether 124 VET teachers from 19 different VET schools were involved in the SWIRL programme.
• Thirdly, an important target group of the SWIRL project were businesses and work life representatives. Altogether, 26 companies and world of work stakeholders participated in the SWIRL programme.

ACTIVITIES & RESULTS
During the lifespan of the project, SWIRL undertook several activities, ensuring that students gained appropriate competences for future working live. SWIRL developed the following tangible products :
– Intellectual Output 1: Student Initiated Biz-Edu Alliance – Set-up Toolkit.
A practical toolkit for vocational schools describing how to set up an integrated regional network of world of work stakeholders.
– Intellectual Output 2: Student Initiated Company Assignments – Pedagogical Teacher Guide.
A hands-on and practical applicable manual describing the SWIRL programme itself, and a step-by-step way how to implement in a VET college.
– Intellectual Output 3: Student Initiated Company Assignments – Student learning materials.
Online learning materials for students describing what the SWIRL programme is about and it plans the steps to 1) collect company assignments with companies, 2) carry out an assignment for a company and 3) present the assignment to the company.
– Intellectual Output 4: Student Initiated Company Assignments – Company Handbook.
A practical guide describing and facilitating the SWIRL programme for companies and the world of work.
– Intellectual Output 5: SWIRL Online platform & Community.
The SWIRL online platform is where everything comes together. The online platform hosts the student learning materials and the discussion forum for all participants and stakeholders, and is therefore the heart of the project.

All the intellectual outputs are available through the project website, at www.studentinitiated.eu.

The partnership was able to involve teachers, students, schools and companies and introduce them to a student-focused approach to work based learning, where students are the active party in collecting company assignments. The SWIRL project showed that with the help of the student learning materials the VET teachers were able to support and empower the VET students and help them to approach companies and to collect and carry out company assignments.. New partnerships and forms of collaboration between VET schools and companies were established during the project.

IMPACT & LONG TERM BENEFITS
SWIRL empowered VET students and boosted their confidence and self-esteem by letting them realise the power of their own personal networks. In addition, SWIRL developed students competences for future working life by increasing their sense of responsibility, networking skills, entrepreneurial mind-set and pro-active attitude. The VET schools and teachers were introduced a motivating teaching method that brought VET colleges and the life of work closer together. As a long term benefit, SWIRL will increase the impact of VET education and improve the employability of young VET professionals.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 296774,25 Eur

Project Coordinator

Seinäjoen koulutuskuntayhtymä & Country: FI

Project Partners

• BRIDGING TO THE FUTURE LTD
• EUROPEAN FORUM OF TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING
• INSTITUTE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT
• C4G – CONSULTING AND TRAINING NETWORK, LDA
• STICHTING BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FRIESLAND
• Agrupamento de Escolas José Estevão