From School Class to Business Class Erasmus Project

Project Title

From School Class to Business Class

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 addressing more than one field

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Access for disadvantaged; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

From School Class to Business Class (SC2BC) is an initiative based on actual demand in the educational sector, perceived from an employment oriented viewpoint. The EC and most national authorities in European countries stress the need to enhance entrepreneurship, because increasing the number of starting companies will pave the road towards increasing employment. If simply numbers are counted, SME’s are the most important creators of jobs, a fact that has been established more than once in economic research. Moreover, this approach will create new opportunities for (young) people finishing school, other than being employed.
Changes in the economic structure and in employment structures have put entrepreneurship in the economic policy spotlights. This is reflected in EU communications (“Entrepreneurship 2020 – EU Action Plan”). In fact, SC2BC is a building block contributing to that Action Plan: the project addresses those levels and target groups in education that have not yet been addressed with entrepreneurship enhancing initiatives.
1. Preparatory VET (in Dutch VMBO) where young learners prepare for active participation in social and economic life after school.
2. Special vocational education and adult VET courses addressing disadvantaged learners, including people with disabilities, who would like to prepare for active participation in social and economic life after VET.
Contrary to the training offer for starting entrepreneurs at academic levels and higher en upper middle level VET (HBO and MBO in Dutch), no specific training approach is available yet for the groups addressed by SC2BC.

The partnership engages in a development, implementation and testing process that will assist young or disadvantaged learners to become successful entrepreneurs. They will be able to start their companies in a well supported setting, involving besides teachers, a team of experienced company managers who will take an active part in the guiding and coaching process. Companies will try to provide working space for the starters they support, in order to let learners experience the “look and feel” of a real business environment.

To achieve its ambition, this project will produce the following, interrelated outcomes:
– Specific learning content and procedures to foster entrepreneurship among young and disadvantaged learners, especially those at the lower levels of VET. The output will be a curriculum containing all necessary learning materials and assessments that will prepare students for running their independent business.
– Cooperation protocols that will serve to generate direct input from experienced company managers whose expertise will be invaluable for young and disadvantaged starters. These protocols will be based on documented joint activities and best practices achieved in seeking cooperation with companies and their representing networks (for instance Chambers of Commerce).

In combination, these two main parts of the approach will be made available (free of charge) but with optional support from the partners in this project to the educational sector and to employment or labour market services to facilitate initiatives in promoting entrepreneurship among unemployed (young or disadvantaged) people.

The direct result of the project will be that a number of at least 25 learners per country will engage in a process leading to independent entrepreneurship during the first implementation period (second project year). Evaluation and adaptation will ensure that a further improved curriculum will be offered to another group of learners (third year). This part of the project will serve as a demonstrator to outside stakeholders.

The impact of the project is to increase opportunities for learners to starting their own business through targeted preparation in VET and to make this option more viable, especially for groups that until now were excluded from such privileges.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 398935 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vereniging Ons Middelbaar Onderwijs & Country: NL

Project Partners

• FONDAZIONE HALLGARTEN-FRANCHETTI CENTRO STUDI VILLA MONTESCA
• Centar za profesionalno obuchenie Znanie
• Starfsendurhæfing Norðurlands
• Stichting Reflexion
• EUROPEAN CENTER FOR QUALITY OOD
• Anmelin
• Zavod Prava poteza