In 2012, the Commission presented the new "Rethinking Education" strategy that calls for a fundamental shift in education with more focus on 'learning outcomes' - the knowledge, skills and competences that students acquire. Merely having spent time in education is no longer sufficient. In addition, basic literacy and numeracy still needs to be significantly improved and entrepreneurial skills and as well a sense of initiative need to be developed or strengthened. This communiqué was for our team, consisting of seven vocational and general education schools, the inducement to establish an international student company. The focus of our activities is the production, marketing and distribution of apples and apple based products. Each partner takes over certain tasks that correspond to the departments of a company and the respective school profile. Thus, the participating students act as "experts" and provide the relevant knowledge and skills to their partners, which are put into practice in international workshop teams: the agriculturally oriented Croatian school deals with the cultivation, refinement and processing of apples, the Italian partner is responsible for the sales and distribution and sets up an online shop, Greece is our IT department and Lithuania is the product and marketing specialist who cares for the artistic design of packaging, brand name and advertising. The Polish team is our human resources department, which mainly deals with the criteria of employee selection and health, the Portuguese school is our research and development department and the German team takes care of the resulting administrative and documentation tasks. Our goal is to impart competent business knowledge and solid professional skills to our students, supporting them to show initiative and personal responsibility in order to develop innovative and creative thinking and to put it into practice, i. e. to arouse their entrepreneurial spirit. In addition, we bring them into contact with small and medium-sized companies which are potential employers in ou region. For our ca. 150 participating students, aged 16-22, this project offers unique opportunities: it is often the only way to get in personal touch with classmates from other European countries and to pay them a return visit, making it possible to find self-affirmation and recognition through extra- class activities out of the daily routine at school. This is specially the case concerning the pupils coming from socially and financially disadvantaged families or having a migration background. Our results, a number of different products, such as a project website, an educational video, a guide book for company founders, self-designed packaging, targeted commercials, a scientific journal as well as the creation of an online shop for our apple product selection, both implicate the application of different working methods and social forms and promote a student-centered, creative and independent action approach. We evaluate the business-knowledge related success of our project by using questionnaires, tests and student presentations in front of the plenum, whereas indicators measuring overall satisfaction, group work and dynamics are set in more playful methods such as interactive role plays, quizzes, debates and visual evaluations. At the end of the project the participants could have acquired the basic entrepreneur skills and economic competences in order to set up their own business and positively got their "Entrepreneurial Skills Pass" issued by JAYE (Junior Archievement Young Enterprise) . We present our project to the local and regional public on the "days of open doors". Implementing the digital versions of our guide-book , online shop and other documentation activities carried out during the teaching/learning/training activities on our common project site, we create free availability of our outputs, generating inspiration and sustainability. With our project APPLES (Applied Pupils' Project for Entrepreneurial Learning Skills), we want to make our personal contribution to entrepreneurship education in schools, which will enable all participants to turn ideas into actions that involve creativity, innovation and risk-taking. The ability to (self-) critical thinking, to plan projects together, to carry them out in problem-oriented teamwork and to evaluate the results obtained, supports participants not only in their private everyday life, but also in school and at workplace. Entrepreneurial education opens up new perspectives as workers, citizens and consumers, it serves as a basis for the acquisition of more specific occupational skills and proficiency can ultimately lead to a business friendly attitude in society and politics, reflected in increased competitiveness and job creation in the countries of the EU.
The theoretical superstructure for our project was the "Rethinking Education" Communiqué written by the Commission in 2012. It calls for restructuring the traditional school education, which is more related to the appropriation of theoretical knowledge and sets a stronger focus on competence-oriented and application-oriented knowledge. Students self-initiative, self-responsibility, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit are to be strengthened and developed. This communiqué was the reason for our project team, consisting of a total of seven vocational and general schools, to create an international company. We had already realized good joint experiences during our former "Comenius" cooperation on the topic "Wine - a European Cultural Heritage" and wanted to deepen the economic and entrepreneurial approach in our new project - also with regard to possible synergy effects through cooperation between the different school forms of our partners’ institutions. The apple is a widely used fruit in the whole of Europe and is therefore a low-threshold and easily accessible learning object for the project work with students. As an everyday commodity, the apple offers an ideal projection surface for more challenging thematic questions with a business-related relevance. We concentrated our activities on the production, marketing and distribution of apples and apple-based products. Each partner assumed certain tasks, which corresponded to the department of an international company. While we organized the assignment, we were aware that the chosen department was compatible with the respective school profile in order to build on the previous knowledge and inclinations of the pupils as well as on the one of our colleagues. As a farming-oriented vocational school, the Croatian partners, concentrated on cultivation, ennoblement and processing of different apple types. The Italian partner was responsible for the sales and distribution and put an online shop in the network, Greece became our IT department because the responsible project manager teaches this subject. The secondary high school in Vilnius turned out to be, thanks to its strong pedagogical profile in the field of visual and performing arts, our product and marketing specialist, being responsible for the artistic design of packaging, brand names and advertising of our apple products. The Polish team became our staff department concerned with selection criteria and processes as well as with staff’s health care. Our Portuguese partner school chose the role as research and development department, because of its longstanding cooperation with the University of Evora and the German team took over the administrative and documentation tasks and the general management. Thanks to this superstructure of an international company, the participating students, developed expertise in their respective field of activity and were able to pass on their appropriate business knowledge and entrepreneurial skills to the partners by using different methods: thematic work in mixed national groups, lectures, peer-teaching units, group puzzles, exhibitions and presentations of the work results. Our aim was to provide participants with basic business knowledge, a greater understanding of economic policy and professional competences in the field of marketing and consumer responsibility. They got insight in the working processes of a variety of small and medium-sized enterprises. A choice of different task assignments challenged their initiative, self-reliance and self-responsibility and encouraged innovative, independent, critical and creative thinking approaches. In addition, we brought the students into contact with potential regional employers. Project work in international teams and the time spent with caring host families gave them the opportunity to make friends with young people from other European countries, to reduce language barriers and prejudices, to find recognition outside the school framework and to broaden their cultural horizon. This applied in particular to the pupils from socially and financially disadvantaged families or to the ones having a migration background. The results of our project work include, e.g. our common project website, presentations, a check-list for company founders, self-designed packages, commercials, self-made apple products (bubble bath balls in our case), a list of criteria for the evaluation of science magazines for children, the creation of an online shop, an exhibition, as well as a role play about our future digitalized life with robots.