EDUCATION – the key for your future! Erasmus Project

Project Title

EDUCATION – the key for your future!

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: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Integration of refugees; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

CONTEXT/BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT: In a society where work is still a key feature of social status, early school leavers have uncertain or poor educational and employment prospects. Our young people grow up in a time that requires flexibility, effort, performance and punctuality. But the reality is different: An increasing number of pupils who leave school without graduating is a serious problem. They sit unmotivated in the classroom, disturb other students and teachers alike, turn away from school and often refuse everything completely. The issue of unwillingness towards school not only concerns politicians dealing with education, but also professional organisations of schools and youth welfare services, and last but not least the teachers in the schools themselves. Early school leaving has become a challenge for our society, and it is an international problem, as the following data on the percentage of early school leavers in our participating countries in 2012 show: Netherlands 8. 8 %, Germany 10. 5 %, Hungary 11. 5 %, Greece 11. 5 %, Spain 24. 9 % and Turkey 39. 6 % (http://ec. europa. eu/education/policy/; strategic-framework/doc/esl-group-report_en. pdf. 31. 01. 2016)

OBJECTIVE: We have set out to get to know about and develop strategies to reduce and in the best case avoid unwillingness towards school and dropouts among our students. As teachers from six nations, we want to learn from each other by showing, testing and comparing experiences and strategies.

NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANT SCHOOLS: All six participating institutions are secondary schools with similar and different strengths and profiles. We share similarities and differences due to national education systems. Five state schools and one private school (Turkey) participated in the project. The same problem brought us together: behavioural problems and disinterest and unwillingness towards school.
The respective coordinators of the project are German teachers. This fact prevented communication difficulties and misunderstandings. In the partner search we have taken care to cover almost every direction in Europe. In the south Hungary, Turkey and Greece, far in the west Spain with the island Gran Canaria and in Central Europe the Netherlands and Germany. That fact alone was exciting: working on the same topic – different conditions, cultures and religions. In the PISA comparison the countries have different results.

MAIN ACTIVITIES: One of our main activities was the exchange of proven strategies. A large number of lesson plans and teaching methods were exchanged, analysed and evaluated by means of questionnaires, opinions, videos and statisticsin each partner school.
We set ourselves the task of completing a pedagogical manual – a summary of our work. As a constant companion beside the manual we developed our project homepage (www. educationthekey. com). We uploaded results and connecting elements on the Erasmus+ project results platform and in eTwinning. Mutual visits beyond the project framework encouraged friendships and partnerships, which also plan joint activities for the future.

RESULTS AND EFFECTS: Our international partnership should help to identify problems related to school unwillingness at an early stage, to benefit from each other, to adopt positive teaching practices and responsibilities from other countries and thereby improve the quality of one’s own school profile.
The Erasmus+ project enabled us to travel to our partner countries. The participants were able to get to know other cultures and school programmes. They carry these experiences and results into a wider community and thus act as multipliers.
By publishing our results, our experience can be adapted to the needs of third parties, transferred to new areas, maintained at the end of the funding period and applied to future projects.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 187151 Eur

Project Coordinator

Schule Finowfurt Oberschule mit Grundschulteil & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Via Nova College
• 62nd Junior High School of Athens
• Özel Mektebim Cukurova Bilfen Anadolu Lisesi
• Instituto de Educación Secundaria José Arencibia Gil
• Baktay Ervin Gimnázium