The School Business Alliance for the Digital Economy Erasmus Project

Project Title

The School Business Alliance for the Digital Economy

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); Cooperation between educational institutions and business

Project Summary

Support systems have a vital role to play in making progress. Schools and teacher education institutions should establish links and cooperation structures with businesses and community organisations to support their entrepreneurship curriculum.
COMMISSION, ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION: A GUIDE FOR EDUCATORS

The Digital Economy ‘potential is dramatically under-exploited in Europe, with 41% of enterprises being non-digital and only 2% taking full profit of the digital opportunities (embracing the four main digital technologies -mobile, social media, cloud and data analytics)’ THE FUELLING DIGITAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN EUROPE PAPER, EC.

It is one of the highest priorities in the Commission’s “rethinking education” agenda to build entrepreneurial mindsets and capacity among young people with the digital insight.

The Commission recommends the creation of such entrepreneurial orientation linked to an open schooling perspective, in which the school and the students collaborate in real-life settings with a variety of organisations and professionals from the world of business and entrepreneurship.

Various experimentations have been carried out in recent years to put those ideas into practice within the framework of the Erasmus+ and other programmes. Several project partners have been involved in such experimentation, building entrepreneurial capacity but also innovation interest among young students in secondary school.

One of the most important lessons learned is:
Yes, it is indeed possible for secondary schools to engage their teachers and students in such entrepreneurial capacity innovation, but it takes a lot of resources from the school and teachers – and also from the collaborating community – to establish the infrastructures of collaboration needed to implement such entrepreneurial didactics.

Schools participating in these experimentations clearly state that they would not have been able to implement the entrepreneurial mind-set ideas without the support from the Erasmus+ project.

It is challenging for schools and teachers to create the needed eco-systems of entrepreneurial collaboration with the community.

Open schooling, entrepreneurial learning and the building of innovation interest will not happen in most secondary schools if the schools need to establish the basic collaborative infrastructures from point zero.

THEREFORE SUCH INFRASTRUCTURES OF ENTREPRENEURIAL COLLABORATION MUST BE READILY AVAILABLE TO SCHOOLS – TO JOIN WHEN PLANNING TO ENGAGE THE YOUNG STUDENTS IN REAL-LIFE ENTREPRENEURIAL LEARNING.

THE CHALLENGE IS THEREFORE TO ESTABLISH (LOCALLY OR REGIONALLY) PERMANENT COLLABORATION INFRASTRUCTURES BETWEEN SCHOOL AND BUSINESS FOR SCHOOLS TO MAKE USE OF WHENEVER PLANNING TO ENGAGE YOUNG STUDENTS IN ENTREPRENEURIAL REAL-LIFE LEARNING.

The question is, of course: how to do that?
How can schools connect to the entrepreneurial business or to the entrepreneurial social sector?
How can such infrastructures be established at local or regional level?
What kind of resources would be able and willing to set up and maintain such infrastructures?

How, in short, to make it possible and sustainable?

The project strategy to set up and maintain such infrastructures are based on the following logic:
– Schools do not have the needed resources to do this and they do not know their way around the business world
– The local or regional public educational departments are not known to take an interest in radical innovation and as public institutions they are not likely to have the resources for such engagement
– In the world of entrepreneurial business private companies are unlikely to undertake such a demanding and permanent task
– Therefore we point to local or regional chambers of commerce as the appropriate organisational platform for setting up entrepreneurial infrastructures for schools and young students

Chambers of commerce are ideal institutions for such permanent entrepreneurial collaboration, as:
– they already operate as a bridge between business, society and education
– they usually have a strong focus on entrepreneurship and capacity building for entrepreneurship
– they already engage with schools and young people on a punctual basis
– most chambers of commerce are developing new mind-sets inviting the chambers to be active players in the community at large
– chambers of commerce by definition have an excellent network of business and entrepreneurial partners
– chambers of commerce are increasingly active in European context
– chambers of commerce promote entrepreneurial learning and mentality in society at large and in particular among young people

The mission of the School-Business Alliance for the Digital Economy project is therefore to set up in practice and evaluate dynamic chambers of commerce-led entrepreneurial infrastructures for schools, and to produce useful guidance and demonstration cases to interested schools and chambers of commerce across Europe.

Project Website

http://sba-project.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 268194,75 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASTON UNIVERSITY & Country: UK

Project Partners

• CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY OF STARA ZAGORA BULGARIA*
• Targovska gimnazia Knyaz Simeon Tarnovski
• ANKARA ESNAF ve SANATKARLARI ODALARI BIRLIGI.
• Srednja tehniska sola Koper-Scuola media technica di Capodistria
• SABA
• ORTAKOY 80.YIL MESLEKI VE TEKNIK ANADOLU LISESI
• Regional enterprise support center