EiYoU - Educational Innovation facing Youth is a two year project that will empower students and teachers to cope with the negative impacts of youth unemployment in learning and schooling. There is an emergency across Europe to decrease the rates of youth unemployment and to early school leaving. These two are connected as the lower expectations and disbelieving in education reinforce school drop out and this is a condition for less employment opportunities. Therefore, there is: - the need to motivate students to take over their future, instead of being threatened by the actual conditions; - the need to deliver coping strategies and resilience competence to this generation, in order to face their professional path in a positive and entrepreneurial way; - the need to distribute among schools, alternative and captivating learning/teaching methods that encourage teachers and students , and, at the same time, support a positive school climate; - the need to stop early school leaving because of demotivation and disbelieve in education. The aim of EiYoU! is to bring together a cross-sectoral partnership, which includes schools, private companies, a NGO and a youth association, to develop a catalog of innovative solutions to address these needs. The methodology is based on the experiences of each school and each teacher, in a bottom-up approach, and includes national and transnational co-creation workshops, short therm exchanges of students, research and pilot interventions in schools and evaluation of impact. Some specific methods towards innovation include prototyping, design thinking, creative learning, hackathon techniques, Edu on Tour and Montessori motivational strategies. The project directly involves a variety of groups: -18 researchers and developers; - 70 teachers as co-creators of educational prototypes of classroom interventions; - 30 students directly enrolled in the mobilities and 80 students who participate in the virtual exchanges and in pilot interventions. - Educational Authorities, such as regional directorships and municipality education councils. - 12 other local stakeholders - employment services, counseling and vocational orientation services, social assistance, active citizenship programmes for youth, youth associations,... The project will achieve 7 Intellectual Outputs, including research reports and implementation resources (info-kit, crowdsourcing platform). From those the most relevant output for distribution and sustainability will be the Catalogue of Educational Innovation. Furthermore, main results will be intangible changes in the participants´ - teachers and students - attitude towards school. They will exit the experiences with a positive mind set for educational effort: students will get more motivated to participate in educational activities (formal and informal), gaining more confidence in using the contents of those activities in creative ways in their life. This competence will prepare them to challenge the "after school life" with positive expectations and more concrete professional orientation. Teachers will be empowered to change the classroom model of teaching, by integrating creative and meaningful learning activities. They will also "learn" on how to produce such innovation, by collaborating with others around them or within the global network (crowdsourcing). By the end of EiYoU! we hope to reduce the drop-out, the discouragement, lower achievement and apathy in the participating schools. In long term the reuse, adaptation and multiplication of these methods will contribute to reach early school leaving rates of 10% or less, supporting the goals of Europe 2020.
‘EiYoU - Educational Innovation facing Youth Unemployment’ lasted two years under the funding of the Erasmus+ programme of the EU. It was born from the great challenge of trying to give an answer to the emergency existing in a specific generation of young people regarding early school leaving and unemployment. As it was singled out in the preparation phase, the existence of a strict connection between lower expectations from the job world and the disbelieving in education led to the will of EiYoU! to try and empower students and teachers to cope with the negative impacts that youth unemployment has on learning and schooling and to change the perception that students have of education, looking at it as something that can contribute to a satisfactory professional life and that could favour a more strict connection with the labour market. The study that stood under the concrete development of EiYoU! revealed a serious condition and challenging situations about youth unemployment, also linked to the overall economic and political situation. The rates of ESL in the partner countries are: Italy and Turkey 17.6 % and 15%, and Portugal and Italy have NEETs rate of 23%. The project objective was to address specific needs and intervene on them with its actions at national and transnational level, as: motivating students to take over their future instead of being threatened by the actual conditions; delivering resilience competences to the generation most affected by the risk of unemployment and give them the tools to face their professional path in a positive and entrepreneurial way; giving schools new teaching and learning methods to encourage teachers and students. All this with the main general objective to reduce the early school leaving caused by demotivation and disbelieve in education. The EiYoU! project brought together 7 partner organisations that, thanks to their interdisciplinary character, contributed together to the proper achievement of the projects’ results. They represent various areas regarding education and all the issues linked to youth unemployment that EiYoU! aimed to address (the school sector, employment and counseling in training, youth). The partnership has produced research reports, implementation resources and a Catalogue of Educational Innovations containing the best innovative interventions developed and experimented during the project. A relevant part of the project activities was represented also by the workshops realized at national and transnational level (exchanges of students and teachers) where the bottom-up approach at the basis of the whole EiYoU! had its most evident expression. Pilot interventions were realized in all the concerned countries to put into practice the educational prototypes co-created by all teachers and crowdsourcing members. Worth of mention are also all the intangible results gained, e.g. the changed attitude towards school that many of the teachers and students demonstrated thanks to their active involvement in this project. They have acquired a positive mind set towards educational efforts, their motivation to participate in educational activities and the importance of personal and creative initiatives increased. Thanks to the pilot testing, the students showed an active engagement in the activities, greater autonomy and sense of responsibility and independence, development of their problem solving skills. They have acquired and understood how positive is to acquire competences that can help them during the life after school and in their professional orientation. Teachers will be empowered to change their model of teaching, by integrating new creative and meaningful learning activities. They will also "learn" on how to produce such innovation, by collaborating with others around them or within a global network (crowdsourcing). EiYoU! reported a concrete increased participation in the learning activities by the students and diffusion in schools of some alternative learning/teaching methods for encouraging teachers in their job and students in their learning path and in participating in school activities with a more positive and proactive approach. As a longer-term benefit the attitude and approaches obtained and implemented are an incentive to reduce the discouragement, lower achievements and apathy in the schools. Multiplying positive reflection effects and influence also on the schools that are in the same region, district, network of the ones directly involved can be singfed out; they in fact will have at their disposal the tools created during EiYoU! A great enthusiasm was clearly demonstrated by teachers towards the actions promoted at EU level thanks to the Erasmus+ programme; they acquired a positive approach and renovated passion for their job. The reuse, adaptation and multiplication of the methods will contribute on the long term to reach early school leaving rates of 10% or less, supporting the goals of Europe 2020.