Confederation of Europia Erasmus Project

Project Title

Confederation of Europia

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The multilateral Erasmus+ partnership „Confederation of Europia“ comprised a team of schools: Collège Vouziers (F), Bodmin College (UK), I.E.S. La Rocha, Telde (ES) and Oberschule Bederkesa, Geestland (D).
The project title „Confederation of Europia“ speaks for itself, in that a state was established. To ensure the success of this state, partner school teachers held a staff meeting during which they created teaching units focusing on the development of the core themes of democracy and elections as well as the establishment of businesses and job application training. These project-specific teaching and learning materials provided the factual knowledge for the implementation of realistic presidential elections and project weeks. Thus around the end of the first project year Presidents from all partner schools gave their campaign speeches at more or less the same time, and all students received their voting slips and participated in the election. With the ceremonial confirmation of the President and Vice President in office, the Constitution of the Confederation was adopted. The four school sites became “Federal Lands”, that joined together to form the “Confederation of Europia” and students became “Citizens of Europia” for two school years. Each term of office lasted one year, with new Presidential elections held in the second academic year.
The territory of the Confederation encompassed two time zones – Europia Continental and Atlantic Time (ECT/EAT) – documented cartographically in the “Europia-Map”. In order that the Confederation could present a ‘statesmanlike’ front in its dealings with the outer world, “citizens” composed a Europia Anthem.
Internal and external overning of the state had to be efficient. For this, the state-website www.confed-europia.eu was used. This website was regularly updated with “State Events”, and job vacancies. It also provided a publishing platform for another central pillar of society – the media: citizens or “foreign” interested parties could keep an eye on “Europia Times” and”Europia TV” in order to stay informed about current affairs in the Confederation. The website will stay online until December 2020.

The high point of the project was the project weeks, the ‘State Visits’, as this saw the content of the teaching units applied in practice. Company founders developed product or service ideas for a ‘business fair’ that was held in each school. After a review of the planning documents by teachers, a start-up loan was provided. During the project week the ideas, cost and wage calculations, advertising strategies, the actual provision of the product or service, the choice of employees etc had to prove themselves. Other students were taught how to create their job application portfolios in order that they could successfully apply in their own Federal Land and also throughout ‘Europia’ on the online job market. As real money was being spent and earnt, students really bought into their own companies. Employees were paid a minimum wage, and employers had to pay back their loan and pay tax on their profits. International cooperation in the companies also required use and knowledge of foreign languages. If disputes arose, citizens were able to call on trained ‘student-mediators’ to help them resolve the issue. That the businesses had a high degree of success shows how well students were motivated in this project. Schools were able to support extracurricular projects or charities with the tax revenue and donations from business profits.
During project weeks, the “Presidents” provided information about their “Federal Land” via an information stand, and received or visited state guests from the fields of politics. They interviewed a County Councillor from Cornwall, a Member of Parliament in Paris, delivered speeches in the parliament of Gran Canaria, and took up an MEP’s invitation to visit Brussels. A special task of the presidents was to moderate the farewell event, the “state banquet” and to award cups for the best companies. There were trophies for the companies with the best stand, the friendliest staff, the most innovative idea and the most financially successful company.
Reporters from Europia Times and Europia TV were ever present. Their contributions show the wealth of events undertaken by the project, and document the high level of competence among Citizens in the fields of democracy, entrepreneurship and digital media usage (see State website). For interested teachers, school leaders etc all teaching units are available free of charge in the Confederation of Europia e-book: (https://books.apple.com/us/book/confederation-of-europia/id1484808116?ls=1 ). In the view of project managers, the bottom line is that for school project of this kind to succeed, you need a lot of time, sufficient start-up capital and a consensus among teaching staff – then it’s worth it.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 131290 Eur

Project Coordinator

Oberschule Bederkesa Schule an der Mühle & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Bodmin College
• IES José Frugoni Pérez
• College Vouziers