The national and EU reports highlight a dramatic situation of youth unemployment rate, linked to the actual wide economical and financial crisis. This scenario calls for a definition of emergency socio economical supporting interventions, of effective industrial and economics reforms and actions and, last but not least, of a radical intervention to the educational system aimed at support a better and sustainable fine tuning with the job market need (as recalled in the main EU recommendations, flagship initiative, programs). The new EU programmatic frame is strongly focuses on the youth empowerment, involvement and integration, across educational levels, countries, age. The fulfilment of a competitive and inclusive society requires for jointly efforts into the economical and job system and the educational one; this is especially true for those particularly disadvantages segments of society. The NEET phenomenon is in fact increasing, both at a quantitative and qualitative dimensions, in terms of enlargement and diversification of age segments, social groups and risks factors. Early school and iVET dropout is increasing and diversifying as well, due to the same social, economical and educational factors underlying the unemployment and NEET trends. Due to the complexity and the diversification of the ESL and iVET drop out trends across countries and educational fields and levels calls for a need of sharing, transferring and building models, resources and competences consolidated by diverse actors operating in diverse educational systems with refer to both pupils “attraction” and “retention”. One of the main learning dimension driving the contrast of the drop-out behaviours (both in ESL and iVET) is considered to be the student awareness, motivation and engagement as well as the trainers (and educational system) competences in designing effective, personalised and engaging learning and job orieenting processes. The project SAVE (Self Awareness, evaluation and Motivation system Enhancing learning and Integration to prevent and contrast ESL and NEET) addresses the main drivers of the described scenarios. It aims, particularly, at improving the attainment of young people, particularly those at risk of early school leaving (including the ones with low basic skills). The strong focus on the individual self awareness and motivation is expected to also impact on the improvement of their social inclusion and well-being. More specifically, the project is aimed at design, realise and validate an innovative system, contemporaneously addressing: students engagement and motivation, by implementing effective self-awareness and evaluation tools and inclusive Learning 2.0 solutions; trainers guidance and learning role empowerment, by defining new pedagogical models based on: self-evaluation; learning personalizations (and digital portfolio); technology enhanced environments, supporting both student learning processes and trainers knowledge sharing; school and iVET responsiveness by implementing stronger dynamic link between education and job market and leveraging on the competencies' recognition within the digital portfolio frame This will be done by: carrying on a transnational need analysis & research activities, aimed at comparing and analysing models, practices and experiences; - transferring and enriching experiences, practices and learning resources related to self evaluation/awareness and digital portfolio developed within previous successful projects carried on by APRICOT, NAVREME and SANVIATOR; - integrating these tools with immersive and experiential and social software tools aimed at improve students engagement and personal/social development; - integrating the self awareness and evaluation tools (and feedbacks) within personalized and effective orienting and learning programs (including internships and school-job alternance); - realizing trainers mobility among the national validation centres as well as within the partners countries to support both the validation of the system, the trainers training and experiences sharing as well as the project results and resources valorisation (in terms of impact on the single national VET system and build the baseline of a future joint training, orienting and mobility programs); - validating the system within 5 national centres (involving CIOFS FP centres and the associated partner MAJORANA schools network) and at the partners countries level (one pilot per each country: ES; UK; CZ); - further valorise and transfer the models, experiences and project resources throughout the national and EU system by constantly involve the main stakeholders. The project will last 24 months and will be carried on by a transnational consortium: expressing the (complementary) main competences and resources required to fulfil project goals; representing the direct and indirect main targets; with a consolidated experiences in complex projects.
Early school and iVET dropout and NEETs in the last decade have been increasing in all EU countries, although with different rates and drivers, Preventing and contrasting ESL and NEETs is at the centre of the agenda both at the EU and national levels in order to support inclusive, competitive and sustainable development processes. That calls for a need of sharing and building models, resources and competences by actors operating in diverse job and educational systems. The student awareness, motivation and engagement as well as the trainers (and educational system) competences in designing effective, personalized and engaging learning and job orienting processes can address the key determinants of a vicious circle based on the progressive decreasing of both expectations and competences. This is exactly the focus of the project SAVE (Self Awareness, evaluation and motiVation system Enhancing learning and Integration to prevent and contrast ESL and NEET) aimed at define and validate innovative models, approaches and tools supporting personalized, active and engaging youth personal development processes, based on self-awareness, reflective and participative based learning models, preventing ESL and NEET phenomena, contemporaneously addressing: - Students’ engagement and motivation by implementing self-awareness/evaluation tools, inclusive guidance and learning solutions supporting reflective, engaging and active behaviours; - Trainers guidance and learning role empowerment: by adopting pedagogical models based on: self-evaluation, learning personalization, digital portfolio and technology enhanced environments; - School and iVET responsiveness: by implementing stronger dynamic link between education and job market, leveraging on the competencies’ recognition within the SAVE portfolio framework. The SAVE system has been: realized, starting from the valorisation of partners complementary competences, resources and experiences; validated within a wide piloting framework, both at national (IT) and partners countries level (ES; UK; CZ). Around 300 youths and 133 trainers were involved just considering the piloting action. Six partners from IT, CZ, ES, UK, with consolidated experiences and representing SAVE targets, carried out the project by expressing complementary competences and resources, related to: self-evaluation and learning personalization (Ciofs-Fp, Educomm, Apricot, Navreme); technology enhanced systems and models (Navreme; Educomm; Apricot; Cultorale); target representation (CIOfs-Fp; Sanviator; Educomm); VET methodologies and organization (Ciofs-Fp; Cultorale; Sanviator). Five intellectual outputs, 8 multiplier events and 3 final conferences, supported by robust communication, dissemination and project management actions and processes allowed to achieve the project goals by: - carrying on a transnational scenarios and need analysis on models, practices and experiences aimed at clustering the targets and focusing SAVE design drivers; - adapting existing (also by creating a common SAVE clipping base) and further developing innovative tools, strategies and resources on the bases of the main scenario evidences; - defining the overall SAVE models and its architecture in terms of web enhanced solutions supporting learning personalization and guidance strategies based on self-awarded, motivated and active processes; - developing the SAVE resources for both youths and trainers and integrating them within the web enhanced SAVE system; - validating and fine-tuning SAVE system and its resources within 11 Italian Centres and in each partner countries. An iterative and multidimensional design-integration-validation approach has been employed, valorising the involvement of targets since the very first project stage to its follow-up, supporting both its improvement and fine tuning as well as its sustainable valorization. The evaluation of the piloting action has also represented the basis for the development of SAVE Recommendations addressing contemporarily the three levels: the system, professionals (trainers, schools and VET organizations but also mentors and companies, job placement) and youths. The results achieved are: the integrated web-enhanced SAVE system, supporting innovative self-awareness and evaluation tools and strategies supporting the learning and development process; recommendations, toolkit and resources; a wide clipping basis of resources; a consolidated and further developed SAVE network; the resources produced for the wide and constant dissemination actions. SAVE main impacts attained refer to all the three levels (youths and system, trainers and organizations, job and placement) both at national and EU level. The expected long term benefits can be related to two directions: the reduction of youth exclusion by enhancing employability (and transversal competences) both as personalized, (pro) active and aware development behaviours and as organizational (companies, schools, VETs).