Dropping in the drop-outs Erasmus Project

Project Title

Dropping in the drop-outs

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

Obtaining an education and a diploma are valuable instruments in today’s society. It is shown that people without a secondary diploma are unemployed for a longer time than people who have acquired a secondary diploma. In 2015, 58.2 % of 18 to 24 year old early leavers from education and training were either unemployed or inactive.
Still, a significant number of students drop out of secondary education before obtaining a diploma (=early school leaving). Some of them decide to go for their diploma of secondary education later on in life. Second chance education in Europe is often successful in helping young people who have failed to accomplish secondary education.
But also adult education faces an increasing number of drop-outs. Combining an adult life with studies remains challenging.

Adult educators have a sense of what causes adult learners to drop out but they are merely assumptions. Because of this lack of information, the prevention of drop-outs in adult education often does not tackle the real causes and therefore fails. Adult education in Europe was in need of concrete, practical measures to deal with dropout in both second chance education and adult education in general.

By developing and applying specific measures, the project ‘Dropping in the drop-outs’ (DIDO) aimed at increasing the chances of succession of adult students throughout Europe and, that way, hopes to contribute to the Europe 2020 strategy which sets out a target of reducing the share of early leavers of education and training to less than 10 % and increasing the share of the population aged 30 to 34 having completed tertiary or equivalent education to at least 40% by 2020.

To achieve this objective, DIDO developed the following two results:

1) Requirements analysis report: based on the research efforts of the DIDO consortium the following two questions were answered:
a) Why do students in adult education drop-out before graduating?
b) Which good practices in the field of drop-out prevention in adult education exist in the partners’ organisations, the partners’ countries and Europe?

2) Dropping in the drop-outs toolkit: this toolkit contains concrete tools and tips and tricks, turning it into a practical instrument for adult education providers in Europe to decrease the dropout rate in adult learning. The tools were developed and tested within the DIDO consortium.

This project focused on adult learners at risk of dropping out their educational pathway and leaving school without acquiring a diploma. More specific, the focus of this project is on younger adults under the age of 30, with a low income and without a job since research has proven that this group is especially vulnerable for dropout.

The DIDO consortium consisted of the six following partners across Europe:
– GO! CVO Antwerpen (Belgium): adult education provider
– Axxell (Finland): VET provider offering education for e.g. adults
– Curio (the Netherlands): secondary VET and adult education provider
– AidLearn (Portugal): training, action-research and consulting company
– HF & VUC FYN (Denmark): adult education provider
– The Swiss Federation for Adult Learning (Switzerland): umbrella organisation for general and vocational adult learning (associated partner supported and financed by Movetia Switzerland)

The toolkit has been a great result and is, due to its user-friendliness, currently being used by both the staff that participated in the project and others in and outside the organisation. Tackling dropout can now be done in a more holistic context by linking dropout policy to concrete tools already available. Adult learners benefit from improved career guidance and competent support in crisis situations as organisations have gained insight in their challenges and now have tools available to overcome these challenges. In the long term, the DIDO project should contribute to a reduction in the number of people dropping out of education and thus to a higher number of people graduating from adult education. This will have an impact on long-term unemployment and the employability of graduates.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 243673,58 Eur

Project Coordinator

CVO Antwerpen & Country: BE

Project Partners

• Axxell Utbildning AB
• Aidlearn, Consultoria em Recursos Humanos Lda.
• Stichting ROC West-Brabant
• HF & VUC FYN Ringen