According to the Europe 2020 Strategy, in order to improve young people's entry into the labour market through must be integrated action covering counselling and apprenticeships. In Europe, apprenticeship training plays a major role for skill formation during the school-to-work transition. Approximately half of the drop outs occur during the first year of apprenticeship training. Target group of Dropout Reduction in Apprenticeship Training Project (DROP@PP) will be who are at risk of dropping out from apprenticeship schools aged 14+year. The DROP@PP is a project focused on cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices among apprenticeship training schools. The project covers a variety of topics which link to: Work based learning (WBL), web based learning, dropout prevention, labour market issues incl. career counseling, unemployment, and entrepreneurial learning. The most relevant priorities addressed by the project are as follows: Promoting work-based learning in all its forms, with special attention to apprenticeship-type training. The purpose of the DROP@PP is to work together with transnational apprenticeship training partner in order to design effective strategies to motivate and support young people who are at risk of dropping out from apprenticeship schools, to provide them returning to apprenticeship training back. It is also meant to equip teachers with knowledge about the specifics of learning in workplace by job shadowing and interviews. In this context, the focus of the DROP@PP is to understand the reasons of dropout of apprentices and share the best existing practice methods on why apprentices dropout their training in the partner countries.What is more, the project aims;- To share practices already implemented by European apprenticeship school partners, by exploring strategies to increase and strengthen career counselling services in labour market. (Best models of DROP@PP ).- To provide a set of success models of integration between apprenticeship training and the world of work focusing combined workplace training for apprentices. Such good practices shall show innovative and creative elements and strategies to reduce the implementation gap existing between what is learnt through apprenticeship training and what is applied at the work based learning.- To design, develop and test a benchmarking system matching the needs between of dropout apprentices and employers on WBL and expressed the needs of European apprenticeship training systems in national levels. (organisational innovation, quality assurance, assessment and certification- To support disadvantaged young people to find an apprenticeship position and complete apprenticeship training. In particular the business connector tool will include subsidy programmes for employer, methods and instruments of web based career guidance for apprentices.There are 5 apprenticeship schools participating in the project, • Ortahisar Vocational Training Center Directorate from Turkey is acting as the coordinator,• Bridgwater College (United Kingdom), • Impresa Sociale is a group of companies representing certified VET centers (Italy)• Kaunas Vocational Training Center (Lithuania), • ROC Da Vinci College (Netherland)A general approach throughout the project is to turn the whole process into practical and mutual learning by implementing active conscious use of workplace learning stages. (Knows – Knows how- Shows how- Does) .During the project the main tools for communication for partners will be the Internet: Dropbox, e-mails, and Skype. There will be 5 project meetings, 5 workshops and 5 job shadowing in total- 2 during the first year of cooperation and 3-during the second one. In order to achieve the aims of the project a variety of activities will be scheduled. Apprentices and teachers will take part in workshops in order to get skills for successful implementation of the key tasks and sharing experiences in the given field as well. These workshops will be held in 5 of the participating schools throughout the 2-year period of cooperation. In addition, appentices will be engaged in a number of other activities: Buddy System by peer learning, the Business Connector to find out own skills and vocational counseling towards different jobs and overall career prospects, apprentices coaching activities with their teachers, prepare digital portolio and Europass CV.End of the DROP@PP four intellectual outputs will be delivered:1) The Analysis report on national apprenticeship training and preventing dropout in the partner schools 2) The Functional support mechanism ( reports of apprentices coaching and buddy system, the business connector )3) Best practice guide for implementation of job based learning methods 4) A final video of DROP@PP Outputs of the project will be disseminated by dedicated website and by presentations at transnational meeting/workshops and seminars in the region.
This Project is about reducing droput rate of students who continue their education in vocational and technical training due to variour problems. In the scope of the Project, which has three main objectives, a pairing program called "buddy system" in which an apprentice student is matched with an experienced one in order to ease their adaptation to school and to remove the negative effects of the school over them. Another main objective of the Project is creating a platform inside the Project website which is called "business connector". Inside the platform, the people seeking jobs and the firms searching for employees are matched together after filling in some basic forms and following some certain steps. Some job opportunities are displayed over the website so as to make possible matching with those who seach for job and employees in which the apprentices are also able to get help while choosing jobs. As one of the main requirements of the platform, the ditigal portfolios must be prepared in advance by students. Relevant activities (Europass Cv preperation course) have also been done during the project period. Under the coordination of our institution, there have been four partner organizations from the UK (Bridgwater&Taunton College), The Netherlands (Roc Da vinci College), Italy (Fondazione Et Labora) and Lithuania (Kauno Statybos ir Paslaugu Mokymo Centras). All of the organizations mentioned are the centres for vocational training. ın addition to all the main objectives mentioned above, local seminars, meetings and various courses in which both trainers and teachers, as well as apprentice students participated were organized locally in each partner organizations. As a result of the feedback, reports after job-shadowing activities and quality assurance plans, it's been seen that important steps have been taken concerning reducing dropout rate, the students have gained another perspective in looking at their job fields after comparing similar activities in European partner countries and those who involved in buddy system activities have increased their own motivation towards their jobs. More clear results of the project will be observed and it is also believed that this project will provide basis for further relevant projects in the longer term.