The EE-ADVANCE projects will and identify best practice in the delivery of entrepreneurship, employability and IT skills required for the creation of, and during employment in, different types of companies such as commercial and social companies and co-operatives. The partnership consists of 6 partners from the U.K. Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Romania and the products will be delivered in 6 languages. The project targets trainers of vocational students and adult learners (250) with up to 50 people from disadvantaged groups. Self-learn activity packs will be provided which will enhance the soft and transversal skills described above. The self-learn activity packs can also be used in companies to make employees more entrepreneurial in their thinking and to improve their approach to problem solving in the work-place. This cross-sector project, working mainly within Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education will provide stimulating and valuable lessons to be shared across different countries and communities. In many EU countries the failure of SME or self-employed traders within the first 5 years for trading is unacceptable high i.e. 30% failure within the first 3 years rising to 50% within the first 5 years of trading. Increased entrepreneurial, employability and IT skills will assist people to gain employment or be self-employed. The need for Lifelong Learning and continuing vocational education in soft skills, particularly with respect to workplace-skills development, is now a necessity as people increasingly change their careers many times during their working life. The project provides learning materials to support the aims of the EU Education and Training 2020 policy with targets of at least 15% of adults involved in Lifelong Learning by 2020 and 75% of people aged between 20 and 64 in employment and less than 10% young people dropping out of education and training by 2020. The objectives of the project are: • To investigate and identify best practice in entrepreneurial, employability and IT training in VET schools and Adult Learning organisations. • To develop individual self-learn activity packs in entrepreneurial, employability and IT skills which when combined will form a self-learn activity pack to support business start-ups. • To pilot the materials within each organisation or within local communities for VET students or adult learners. • To develop pathways for Knowledge Exchange and between SMEs and educators. • To increase transnational partnership working and the sharing of best practice between 6 partner countries. • Provide new self-learn methods of teaching and learning materials which can be used to influence policy makers and educators in each country. Outputs and results: • A website to disseminate information and the reposts and learning materials produced by the project. • A report on the entrepreneurship, employability and IT skills training available in each country with identified examples of best practice and suggestions for improvements. • A report on the different legal status of companies found in each country. • A report on the requirements of employers with regards to entrepreneurial thinking in employees. • Three individual self-learn activity packs in entrepreneurship, employability and IT skills. • Using the activity packs above, a combined self-help activity pack for business start-ups will be produced. • Improved partnership working and sharing of ideas. • Increased EU mobility opportunities. As a partnership project the UK will act as project coordinator and each partner will lead as work-package in their own specialist area. The short-term benefits of the project is the support of vocational students and adult learners in learning skills for business and employment. The longer-term impact will be to have more sustainable generated as the entrepreneurs starting the businesses have improved skills and are better prepared when they start their business.
This project has been terminated by the NA due to liquidation of the coordinator. The final report has been completed and submitted by the NA based on evidence of project costs submitted by the partners.