EU employment skills Erasmus Project

Project Title

EU employment skills

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment

Project Summary

The project “EU employment skills” was founded after teachers in partner’s schools realized the need for their students to be better equipped with the skills necessary to attain employment once they leave school. The free movement of employees within the EU enables those, with the correct skills, to find work around Europe. This opportunity also brings obstacles for those students wishing to find a job in Europe not only related to the basic elements of relocalisation but linked to working culture, attitudes, discernible skills, attainable requirements, country specific employment requirements and human interaction skills that are needed to obtain a job in the EU.

The project ran for 3 years on a broad EU labour field market with the 5 partner countries (Finland, Italy, Denmark, Germany and France) and included 2 mobilities per year including 4 students and 2 teachers for most of the mobilities. They collaborated to analyze what are those specific requirements and skills in order to share them with our students. The 5 partner schools were all vocational schools or lower secondary schools, thus, we can say that students are close to professional labour market because of their various training periods in several companies.

The study of the different business systems provided a true EU overview of the subject and lead to the creation of an “EU Job skills guide”. To this end, each school picked local “parent companies” to work with for the duration of the project. The companies are also the part of the transnational meetings that took place an form the main information source for the guide. During each mobility, we followed a common structure of activities such as icebreaker, company tour, workshop day at school and we also focused on one specific topic in each country.

The objectives of the projects were mainly :
– to talk with people from companies to find out what personal qualifications and skills are needed thanks to a 10 question survey and company tours
– to identify the main methods for the transference of skills within the EU with the writing of Europass CVs, cover letters and international mock interviews in another language.
– to increase students entrepreneurship capabilities by providing them the experience of visiting and working with companies

The role of ICT was also an essential element both in the integration of the project themes into everyday teaching practices and also provided students and teachers the opportunity to learn how to work in an online transnational project. Google education apps was used by all partners schools and students as this provided an effective online space for students and teachers to learn and share their work. There is a network of schools blogs and Google groups established to aid in the flow of information and learning materials. The learning and teaching working methods used during the project was innovative, attractive and adapted to the students of nowadays and from everywhere because of the use of ICT.

As the project involved a number of business visits and regular interaction with EU businesses, we felt that it provides the students with the maximum exposure to actual and practical working conditions. It will, thus, increase their chances to obtain work in other EU countries and procure them the most up to date skills and requirements.

This project will help the students to obtain relevant information and practical experience that will aid in the procurement of work in the EU in later life. It will also increase their entrepreneurship by providing them the experience of visiting and working with companies, consequently to be aware of the skills and requirements needed not only in their country but everywhere in Europe.

Moreover, as all the was done in English, it has given them the opportunity to develop their abilities in speaking this language which is the most important tool to apply for a job in the EU.
We also hope that our “EU Job skills guide” as well as the testimony of our students will be used by others students who will be encouraged to follow their lead.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 141154 Eur

Project Coordinator

Grønvangskolen & Country: DK

Project Partners

• Secondary School Lila
• ITIS Galileo Ferraris
• Kalajoen Lukio
• OGEC NOTRE-DAME DU ROC
• KBS Nordhorn