Early School Leaving (ESL) is on the raise in both Hungary and Romania. Those two countries are amongst those having a larger than average rate of ESL in the EU, despite efforts made by the educational structures. Phenomenon of ESL is occurring more frequent to young people with disadvantaged background, often the members of Roma communities. Association Co-Efficient is operating an afternoon school (Tanoda) in tandem with Association Green Wave, located in Gyöngyös with the aim of decreasing the danger of ESL amongst disadvantaged young people. 85% of the students are Roma, some of them already left the schooling system before reaching the age of 15 due to early family foundation; despite the fact that it is very much possible to continue the studies while expecting or raising a child. Nevo Parudimos reinforced the project idea with similar experiences; despite the direct correlation of labour market position and education, the correlations between disadvantaged young people, early family foundation and early school leaving is under-researched and under-threated. Staff of educational structures are often lacking the capacity or toolkit to reach out for those dropping out of the system, general prejudices toward Roma people further deteriorate the situation. Main aims and specific objectives Learned Inactivity (LEADNFE) project aims to develop a toolkit for youth workers and youth organizations which -based on practices and principles of non-formal education -is suitable for the target group -is based on empirical evidences - can be used or adapted across EU countries Ultimately, our aim is to reduce the risk of ESL amongst young people by applying NFE principles specially tailored at a disadvantaged target group. Activites -to conduct a research in Romani and Hungary involving 300 young people to map their needs and check the validity of our hypothesis -develop a toolkit to combat ESL with NFE -pilot the methods by involving 15 disadvantaged young people into a long-term process -widely disseminate and mainstream the results amongst countries affected by the phenomenon
Early School Leaving (ESL) is high on the European Agenda. EU2020 aims to reduce the rate of ESL in every member states, below the level of 10%. ESL is on the rise in both Hungary and Romania. Those two countries are amongst those having a larger than average rate of ESL in the EU, despite efforts made by the educational structures. Phenomenon of ESL is occurring more frequent to young people with disadvantaged background, often the members of Roma communities. LEADNFL project was a two-year long strategic partnership funded by Erasmus+ aimed at researching the causes, circumstances and means to prevent early school leaving and also the connection between early school leaving and having children at an early age. The acronym stands for Learned Inactivity – Decreasing the Number of ESL Students in Disadvantaged Communities with the Power of Non-Formal Learning addressing the complex targets of the project. These targets were structured into three phases: the research phase, the methodology development phase and the final phase for dissemination of results. The research phase was conducted in Romania and Hungary involving more than 300 (Hungary: 162, Romania:150) subjects in each country using the snowball method as sampling. Subjects were early school leavers between ages 14-22 all from disadvantaged communities. The research used both qualitative and quantitative methods: survey and focus group discussions. The research concentrated on two communities, achieving representative results were out of the scope of the initiative. One of the key findings of the research was that while amongst all ESL students 29% had children, 45% of those were not planned. Based on the results of the research we can say that among those subjects who already had children 72% named having children, 19% named lack of motivation to study, 15% named frequently being absent from school as the main reason for their early school leaving. It became clear that students starting a family do not have the necessary support from the social/educational system which would allow them to both graduate from school and fulfil their duties as parents. The methodology development phase was conducted through transnational meetings with the attendance of experts in the field of non-formal education. This phase focused on putting together a non-formal education methodology in order to decrease the number of ESL students, which will be made public in a form of a methodology handbook in three languages during October 2017. Beside the dissemination of the results in the coming publication, the three participating partners organise a conference for experts in Budapest – Hungary, Resita – Romania and Brussels – Belgium.