In September 2014, the unemployment rate in EU reached 20,1% and statistics show that 1 in 5 EU adults has low skills which leads to social and occupational exclusion. Owing the social difficulties and inequities which our areas are suffering from, it is needed for us to elaborate and implement strong measures to reduce as much as possible these inequalities. The project target group consists mostly of students with social issues in their personal development, from familial environments which do not encourage academic success and also exposed to long term personal and professional failure. One desirable impact of the project would be for the students to choose conscientiously according to their skills and interest they present, along with the labour market requirements. Many of the skills intended in the project activities are poorly reflected in the school curricula, therefore the outputs shall be included in auxiliary teaching materials used in teaching-learning activities for various subjects, especially during counseling classes or non-formal activities. Direct and direct beneficiaries are parents, who will acknowledge the importance of being educated and skilled, teachers who will benefit from the exchanged good practices and the stakeholders who will be involved in educational decision making. It is impossible to give an exact number, because we intend to extend our activities to all students from the participating schools and some activities will involve also many stakeholders. The most important objective of “Skills for life” is enhancing any skills which might contribute to personal development and enable everyone to adapt to social and economic changes. It addresses 3 subtopics: core life skills, digital skills and career guidance. The project team assumed that career and life making is a personal process and individuals have to decide their own way and are responsible for their choices. From this perspective, the objectives are in line with the strategic objective of EU regarding education, namely “improving the quality and efficacy of education and training” and the Lisbon strategy, “an efficient investment in human capital through education and training at the same time promoting personal fulfillment, social cohesion and active citizenship”. All participants will be involved in all stages of the project, from construction to dissemination stage which enables the participants to develop initiative, team spirit and team work, active participation to decision making and forming an aware learning strategy. The visible measurable impact of the project is the enhanced quality of learning and decrease of the social and training gaps. “Skills for life” encourages leaning methods focused on the students’ needs and practice of acquired skills, especially via LTT (peer to peer teaching methods). The project will use many strategies: self-assessment, individual and work group, debates, portfolios, short-term activities, digital skills evaluation with ECDL, progress report, remotely performed activities, such as web conferences or Twinspace activities, questionnaires and surveys and monitoring and evaluation forms. We will use this methodology in order to ensure the success of each of project stages. “Skills for life” will involve students, parents, teachers and local stakeholders in many activities such as self-awareness exercises (describing one’s interest, values or personality traits), labour market related activities such as researching on trades and professions, company visits, web conferences, self-presentation at an interview, digital activities such as elaboration of a letter of intention or a CV, creation of an e-profile or seminars given by professionals. The project includes also 2 project meetings and 4 (four) Learning, teaching, training activities/hosted mobilities, to which each country shall take part in with 6 students and 2 teachers, there will be 72 student mobilities and 24 teacher mobilities. On institutional level the impact shall be measured by European openness and cooperation.The work with the students allows the development of a relationship based on mutual trust among participants, with long-term impact on enhanced quality in education. Via job-shadowing, lectures, simulated job interviews, etc, the participating schools shall benefit from the labour stakeholders and local authorities involved in school decisions and create long-term cooperation beneficial for all educational institutions, which provide an educational offer in accordance with the labor market requirements. Many activities will be concluded with the creation of auxiliary educational materials to be uploaded for free use on the two educational platforms e-twinning and MOODLE, so as to be used by the entire international community of teachers and students. They will also be uploaded, where possible, on the websites of the participating schools.
In September 2014, the unemployment rate in EU reached 20,1% due to low skills, which can lead to social and occupational exclusion. Moreover, students all over Europe have social issues in their personal development and their familial environments, some of them abandon school in order to provide for their families, hence they are exposed to long term personal and professional failure. The most important objective of “Skills for life” was to enhance any skills which might contribute to personal development and enable everyone to adapt to social and economic changes. It addressed 3 subtopics: core life skills, digital skills and career guidance. The project team assumed that career and life making is a personal process and individuals have to decide their own way and are responsible for their choices. From this perspective, the objectives were in line with the strategic objective of EU regarding education, namely “improving the quality and efficacy of education and training” and the Lisbon strategy, “an efficient investment in human capital through education and training at the same time promoting personal fulfillment, social cohesion and active citizenship”. The target group of the project was students facing social and economical obstacles or those who were facing a lack of perspective, indecision regarding their future career, absence of family support. We were 4 partners in this project, therefore there were 72 students, direct beneficiaries and 24 teachers involved in the Learning, teaching, training activities, but, in reality, there were more students and teachers involved, due to the actuality of the topic and the need for formation. We also invited parents to join the project activities in order to acknowledge the importance of being educated and skilled. Indirect beneficiaries of this project were teachers who benefited from the exchanged good practices, also the stakeholders (administration representatives, local firms representatives who have been involved in some of project activities, such as job shadowing activities). All participants, students and teachers, were involved in all stages of the project, from construction to dissemination stage which enabled the participants to develop initiative, team spirit and team work, active participation in decision making and forming an aware learning strategy. The visible measurable impact of the project is the enhanced quality of learning and decrease of the social and training gaps. The project used many strategies: self-assessment, individual and work group, debates, portfolios, short-term activities, digital skills evaluation with ECDL, progress report, remotely performed activities, such as web conferences or Twinspace activities, questionnaires and surveys and monitoring and evaluation forms and involved students, parents, teachers and local stakeholders in many activities such as self-awareness exercises (describing one’s interest, values or personality traits), labour market related activities such as researching on trades and professions, company visits, web conferences, self-presentation at an interview, digital activities such as elaboration of a letter of intention or a CV, creation of an e-profile or seminars given by professionals. The project included also 2 project meetings and 4 (four) Learning, teaching, training activities/hosted mobilities, to which each country took part in with 6 students and 2 teachers, so, in the end, there were 72 student mobilities and 24 teacher mobilities. All activities carried out addressed the objectives and priorities of Erasmus + programme, all objective are clearly stated on the Logical frame of the project and known by all partners, also the project activities addressed the needs of the target group. In order to provide a clear framework we have written a communication plan, a management and implementation plan, a risk control and a monitoring and evaluation plan, we have also elaborated a common dissemination plan. We stated in the application form that 18 students form each country will be involved in direct activities, but in reality the number is higher, because many students took interest in the project activities. Also the number of online resources provided by each partner is higher, as well as the number and type of organizations involved in the project.we can count on the following outputs (tangible results): 1 curricula: Becoming employable (all partners), 1 teamwork kit (France), 1 personal development plan for students (Poland), 1 Linguistic strategy paper (Germany), 1 Digital guide for future employees toolkit (Romania), 1 skills portfolio for future employees (all partners) And many teaching aids which are uploaded on the site www.my-skills-for-life.com, for the free use of anyone. We have also performed activities on Moodle platform and robotics workshop. We have issued also 90 Europass Mobility Certificates for students detailing the skills acquired during mobilities.