Tackling Early Leaving – Out of Box Education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Tackling Early Leaving – Out of Box Education

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Bearing in mind the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy to reduce early school leaving to less then 10%, the European Priorities in the national context, as announced by the National Agency from Romania and the national statistical data regarding this topic from Romania (18.1%), Spain (18.3%), Italy (14%) and Bulgaria (12.7%) (Eurostat – Statistics explained, 2018), our project decided to tackle early school leaving (ESL), being mindful of its significant social and economical consequences for students, as well as for the economy and the society as a whole.
The objectives of our project are:
1. To develop 3 skills that prevent students to become early school leavers (decision making, problem solving and effective communication) for
1 000 students from 5 partner schools.
2. To improve 1 000 students’ self-esteem and self-efficacy from 5 partner schools.
3. To raise the awareness of 1000 parents from 5 partner schools regarding early school leaving.
4. To develop one model of good practice regarding the effective prevention of early school leaving.
5. To strengthen the capacity of 400 teachers to prevent ESL, whilst promoting participatory approaches, game based learning and ICT – based methodologies.
The participants who will benefit directly are: 1000 students (with disadvantaged backgrounds and fewer opportunities, who face personal, social, family, economic or school-based problems), 1000 parents from 5 partner schools and 418 teachers from the local community.
Our project aims to offer an innovative and creative approach to ESL, stimulating the students to engage in more attractive formal and non-formal education, in order to reach the desirable level of knowledge, skills and competence and to increase their commitment to quality, as well as their interest to learn, achieve and become active and responsible members of our society, actively engaged in the labour market. We plan to encourage students to develop personally and socially, with a particular focus on their self-esteem and self-efficacy in order to become more resilient, aiming to address the identified problem by using a structural, school based and person centered strategy that involve: a) to raise students’ aspirations and to motivate them to develop personally and socially, b) to encourage a proactive multi-agency approach to ESL, c) to increase parental involvement in motivating and supporting the students and d) to strengthen the teachers’ capacity to work with potentially school leavers and to offer a more attractive teaching and learning environment, using participatory approaches, game based learning and gamification and ICT-based methodology. The project will support the students to increase their commitment to quality, to learn from peers and teachers from European Union, becoming more tolerant and flexible and accepting diversity, to embrace positive role-models, to raise their aspirations and to develop 3 skills that will prevent them to become early school leavers. Furthermore, our project offers a complex and innovative approach to ESL, involving students, parents, teachers, relevant stakeholders and members of the local community, aiming to focus on the students’ needs, interests and personality, as well as on the improvement of the teachers, the stakeholders and the parents’ knowledge and skills, that will help them to prevent ESL and to respond more effectively to this problem, decreasing on the long term the risk of poverty and social exclusion, whilst promoting inclusive education for all, irrespective of race, color, religion, age, national origin, sex, economical status and disability.
The school partners will become known in their communities for their qualitative involvement and commitment to prevent effectively ESL and to work together with other partners from private, public or non-governmental sector in order to offer a proactive multi-agency approach to ESL. The project’s results will be disseminated in the local community and the parents and the students’ trust in the partner schools will increase significantly as they will prove during the project’s implementation that they are committed to qualitative standards in education and they make significant efforts to improve the teaching style and the educational services that they offer. As a result of that, more students will become interested to be enrolled in the partner schools and more teachers will seek to join our professional teams. The project will also help the teachers from the partners schools to gain more experience working in an European environment that is constantly changing, which will help them to gain more knowledge and skills and to become more flexible on the labour market, finding new jobs if needed or contributing more to their school’s strategic development. The partner schools will be more willing and prepared to coordinate or to work in partnership with other schools from European Union in order to solve other identified problems.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 145117 Eur

Project Coordinator

Scoala Gimnaziala “Dimitrie A Sturdza” Iasi & Country: RO

Project Partners

• ou ’20 april’
• ISTITUTO D’ISTRUZIONE SECONDARIA SUPERIORE STATALE “LUIGI CALAMATTA”
• Osnovna skola Vladimira Nazora Pazin
• Colegio Nuestra Señora de Monte-Sión