CareerProgramme – Going beyond borders Erasmus Project

Project Title

CareerProgramme – Going beyond borders

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

OTP’s Fáy András Foundation (referred to as ’Coordinator’ and ’Foundation’ later) of Hungary and Romanian Right to Education Foundation partnered up to realise their project tackling an EU-wide problem, namely mass unemployment, specifically youth unemployment.
According to the results of the most recent attitude reserach carried out in Hungary by the Foundation, young people are living for the moment without having any objectives for the future and they avoid decisions which may entail risks and uncertainties. Moreover, they tend to have a low self-esteem and a low self-confidence. As a consequence of the aforementioned problems that young generations are currently facing in Hungary, we can state that they experience considerable difficulties when looking for professional growth and development opportunities in the European labour market.
Against this background and in line with the main aim of the Europe 2020 Strategy to reduce rates of early school leaving and fostering youth participation in the labour market, the project was meant to offer a solution for these problems to foster social integration and well-being of young generations.
Aiming to achieve these goals the Foundation centered its project around developing the OK Career Programme and its own special methodology, the so called „OK methodology”, and following its proper adaptation gradually implementing it in Romania.
The 25-year-old Foundation has based its professional activity under the motto “Opportunities for the Future Generations”. In its Budapest and Nyíregyháza OK Training Centers the Foundation provides its own courses in finance, economics and management, tailored to the actual needs of the students using its inspirational pedagogy based methodology.
So far over 100,000 students have participated in the trainings, the main goal of which is shaping the social attitude towards the subjects.
Fundatia Dreptul la Educatie (Right to Education Foundation) as a strategic partner has since its setup in 2015 been delivering free of charge, 4-hour finance, economics and management trainings to 10-18 year-old Romanian children based on the „OK methodology” of the Coordinator.
The Partners have developed the Career Programme in accordance with the EU labour market’s current and future requirements to assist Hungarian teenagers’ professional orientation and career planning. The Programme offers mid-term solutions for young people to increase their labour market potential. One part of the innovative, interactive and inspiring material (’CareerSchool’) is aimed at 13-15 year-olds, the other (’CareerCoach’) focuses on 17-19 year-olds and its objective is to increase self-recognition and assist youngsters in identifying the career opportunities most fit for their skills and competencies.
Parallel to the development of the training materials an attitude research using primary and secondary methods was conducted among Romanian children about their future and careers (the results have been published in a study available in Romanian and Hungarian) and used in the Career Programme’s Romanian adaptation process.
The preparation of trainers of the two Foundations was followed by the implementation of the Career Programme into practice. In Hungary, 472 students (249 from 21 types of high schools and 224 from 10 types of primary schools) from 11 settlements, in Romania, 424 students (321 from high schools and 103 from primary schools, from 14 schools altogether) from 8 settlements completed all the modules of the 3 to 4 part trainings (further 102 students joined in for one module). The training material was then optimized and finalized based on the experience of the trainings.
At the end of the project an English version of both the Hungarian and the Romanian originals was produced and a trainer from each Foundation had prepared to deliver the material in English, making it the first step towards the long-term goal of gradually implementing the Career Programme in other European countries as well.
The Partners introduced the intellectual outputs during 4 multiplier events in Bucharest and Budapest, which were a great success.
The largest impact of the project was on its primary target group, namely the young participants of the career trainings. They
– gained self-recognition necessary for a career choice, got a better understanding of their values, needs, strengths, opportunities,
– were enabled to get a positive view of themselves and use that in presenting themselves in a successful way and formulating a successful and happy life,
– became more conscious and future-oriented as a result of the knwoledge and the gained and developed competences,
– became proactive and commited towards the society.
By creating the Career Programme the partners have managed to contribute to the formulation of a unique European perspective of young people’s self-recognition, career orientation and helping them identify and find the most suitable career path for them.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 123995 Eur

Project Coordinator

OTP Fáy András Alapítvány & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Fundatia Dreptul La Educatie