According to the information from Eurostat about the age when students finish their school time and the early ending rate of people between 18 and 24 and taking into consideration that it should be under 10% (Strategia ET 2020), we can see that, in Europe, it reaches 11,7%, being as high as 20% in Spain, 15% in Italy, 13,7% in Portugal, 7,9% in Greece, 5,3% in Poland and 2,8% in Croatia (taken from https://goo.gl/eBDEQA in 2015). With the exceptions of Croatia, Poland and Greece, all the other countries are high above the maximum recommended, with Spain as the “sad winner”. Out of this information we have the basis of our project. But there are more reasons. The PISA tests show that the students’ economical, cultural and social context is highly influential on their achievements. But it is also clear that motivation and implication are both basic parts of their learning. At the same time, although the perfect situation would be that in which the student would find motivation motu proprio, it is not often the case. This is when school gains importance, as it can provide the circumstances to make motivation arise. This is why learning and teaching contexts must be real. Stimulating motivation we will, as a consequence, push up their possibilities of success. It is necessary to give a practical value to all the things that have been learnt, to boost their possibilities to find a job or start their own business. Our project aims to a practical, real and collaborative experience among several partners with complementary backgrounds, which will achieve them to work together. We would like all the participant countries to look for and choose one possible business to be able to develop a business project which might start with the creation of a company and finish with the production of the goods or services suitable to the social context and environment, with high development possibilities and with the intention of adding an improving value (recycled or eco-friendly materials, efficiency when using energy, care with packaging etc). Every member will specify it after taking a market survey and checking the needs of possible buyers and the success possibilities. We aim to promote our product as the result of our own social context, showing for tourism the region where it comes from. Afterwards, to introduce it in a market, the different business rules for each country, the law and how to calculate the cost of production, ect. will have to be apprehended. At the same time, the company that will produce the product will be started. It will advertise it and do all the procedure to launch it into a market. Our students will be between 15 and 19, when their knowledge and interests are close to our objectives. 10 students and 5 teachers from each country will travel and approximately six times more will collaborate in this project. Our objective will be based on the three eTwinning ideas: interaction, collaboration and communication. eTwinning and Twinspace will be basic to make our students participate, interrelate and produce together; Google Classroom, Drive, Zoom, Slack and Whaller will also be tools to be used. The project website will be a necessary tool. It will be the first window to the outside world, the source of information about our work and ourselves. It will be the core from which all the rest of spaces (Twinspace, Classroom, videochats, Slack, Whaller…) will begin. The project website will offer a general sight of itself, of its objectives, of its progress, results, the association and its contacts. By means of questionnaires, which both the participants in this project and the receivers of the products will have to fulfill, we will learn about the final impact. Broadcasting, (radio, written press, parents’ meetings…), will also give us a clear answer to the question of our success. And our students, those directly or indirectly implied, motivated and interested, will tell us if the business world and its possibilities are far away from them or maybe their points of view have changed and now they are able to face all the challenges with enough skill and guarantee to succeed
When we planned our project, we had in mind Eurostat data concerning the age at which pupils finish their education and the early school leaving of the 18-24 year-old population. We found that, with the exception of Croatia, Poland and Greece, the other countries far exceeded the recommended maximum, being Spain the "sad champion" in this classification. This alone justified the approach of our project. We also took into consideration the need to influence the motivation of the student and his or her degree of involvement. To do so, it is essential to place them in real teaching and learning contexts. And with this premise we started our journey in this project "Dare to an Entrepreneur": to give a practical value to everything learned, to improve the possibilities of finding a job or to promote self-employment by creating our own company. Always from a practical starting point, our project has sought from the beginning a practical, real and collaborative experience between the partners. Each of the countries involved has looked for, detected and selected a business idea, all with the aim of developing a business project, from the setting-up of the company to the production of a specific good or service typical of its environment or context (culture, history, customs...), with a high potential for development and with the idea of applying an added value that would improve it (recycled or environmentally friendly materials, efficient use of resources, sustainable packaging...). Greece created a food company, Croatia a plastic recycling company, Portugal a marketing company for products from the region, Spain a company of handmade soaps... Each partner did a market study and checked the needs of its environment and the possibilities of success. Our objective has been to promote our product as such and as a result of its own context and environment, promoting tourism in the region where it was located, interrelating product and place of origin in an intrinsic and consequent way. Not only have we created the company in a logical and consequent way, but we have also taken care of the other essential sections to reach success: marketing standards, legislation, production costs, promotion, advertising... And all this putting as a coda an International Fair, in Spain, that has allowed to give visibility to all our work and has given to know Erasmus+ in general and our project in particular in our near and not so near environment. The target group has been students between 15 and 19 years old, an age in which their level and educational interests are close to the proposed objectives and the line of work of the project. Between 10 and 15 students per country have participated in the mobilities, but the number of students in each place has been much higher than the number of students who have collaborated in the whole process. Our objective has been based on the three pillars of eTwinning: interaction, collaboration and communication. eTwinning and Twinspace have been basic to get our students to collaborate, interact and produce together; Google Classroom, Drive, Zoom, Flock... have also been essential tools. And we have not forgotten the evaluation. Thanks to the rubrics and forms created and filled in ad hoc, we have been able to confirm that our project has been a success. The spreading, in the press or on the radio or in meetings with parents..., has also given us a clear answer as to what our impact has been. But the most important thing is that our students, those directly or indirectly involved, motivated and interested, no longer have the business world unaware of them. Their vision has changed and they are able to face these challenges with sufficient knowledge and guarantee of success.