Practice Enterprise (also known as Practice Firm, Training Firm) is a simulated company that runs like a real business silhouetting a real firm’s business procedures, products and services. A Practice Enterprise (PE) resembles a real company in its form, organization and function. Each Practice Enterprise trades with other Practice Enterprises, following commercial business procedures, in the Practice Enterprise worldwide economic environment. Each country in which a Practice Enterprises Network exists has its own service Centre, called the National Central Office (CO). There are over 7500 Practice Enterprises in more than 40 countries worldwide which are represent by the network Europen Pen-International. In this didactic concept, the roles of the Teachers/Trainers/Lecturers and the students differ strongly from those in the traditional teaching learning processes. The PE Trainer is the general moderator of the firm, guiding the trainees as employees to meet the Practice Enterprise’s Business Plans and budgets. Definitely they are the guide and adviser of the company’s “employees”. The trainees are the workers in the firm. Some are appointed as directors, line managers for a part of their training and development. Long time experience show, that Practice Enterprise is a training possibility for anyone - students from general education, vocational and high schools, universities; adults as a tool for reinsertion, initial vocational training and orientation, retraining (unemployed, people with disabilities, etc.). It is simulated business, that is why this model as a training tool and training place can be a perfect possibility for young people to increase sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, improve level of skills for employability and new business creation, they will gain possibilities to have more active participation in society. In numerous meetings with PE Trainers (both in national and international level) the issue with the lack of material for Trainees in the field of management was pointed out. FETLED project aims to review the material, related to leadership and management competences, adapt and test it in Practice Enterprise Education system environment. The research work will be done – which core leadership competences could be developed focused on during the PE training. The catchy and engaging way for examining the nature of leadership competences, with great attention to awareness of socially responsible business. That comes from the fact that a people in VET training system are young people and they have less opportunities to gain knowledge in this field compared to those coming from Higher education system. Also, PE methodology in VET schools can help to get the “Europe 2020 strategy“ objective related to early school leavers, it will help to decrease the number of dropouts, will have the effect of increase the attractive of VET school system, both to students and teachers. The main target group: Trainees, working in PE (VET students). Project will also involve: Trainers working with PE methodology (VET teachers). Indirect target group: Parents, VET schools. The project objectives, with references to outputs and results, are to: * review the literature, best practices, development and implementation of similar initiatives and programs and conduct gap analysis and needs assessment to promote entrepreneurship and leadership skills, with use of Practice Enterprise. * develop material for trainees, in order to foster the development of leadership competences, to form the knowledge base-ground of being socially responsible person, to improve level of skills for employability and new business creation. *disseminate the created material to relevant multipliers and support its further promotion, implement online activities targeting the wider society in all partners countries, EU and worldwide through various channels. Results: Practice Enterprise Manager SkillBox. The guidance for Trainee how to acquire leader abilities while working in the Practice Enterprise. The Skillbox will consist of 2 parts: * The first part will be content-based aiming to raise awareness of core leadership competences and give an opportunity to learn effective ways for exercising responsibility as social members and intercultural learners. * The second part will be performance-based comprising test for Trainees to evaluate their knowledge gained in the field of leadership, taking into account social responsibility. For that purpose a Performance Self-Test will be developed. It will be an innovative self-appraisal tool for discovering skills that participants possess and those they would need to develop and boost in order to be prepared to excel as European citizens.
Practice Enterprise (PE) is a simulated company that runs like a real business silhouetting a real firm’s business procedures, products and services. Each PE trades with other PEs, following commercial business procedures in the Practice Enterprise worldwide economic environment. In this didactic concept, the roles of the Teachers/Trainers and the students differ strongly from those in the traditional teaching learning processes. The trainees are the workers in the firm. Some are appointed as directors, line managers for a part of their training and development. It is simulated business, that is why this model as a training tool and training place is a perfect possibility for young people to increase competences related with management and leadership and improve level of skills for employability and new business creation. Within the FETLED project the materials related to leadership competencies was reviewed, applied and tested in the PE environment with the main aim – to create “Leader SkillBox” (SkillBox). 3 project objectives, connected with leadership literature study, SkillBox material development and results dissemination were reached according to undertaken activities: * There was research done on what key leadership competencies could be developed in Practice Enterprises. The nature of leadership competencies was highlighted, with a strong focus on the perception of socially responsible business. Four SR-related core competences Awareness, Influence, Innovation, Integrity and 20 SR-related competences, coming from four SR-related core competencies. * Created material - Skillbox - was widely tested not only with PE students and teachers in VET organizations, but also with other stakeholders in HEI, secondary schools and business. Gathered feedback was evaluated by partners and incorporated in the Final version of Skillbox. * Dissemination plan was created to promote project results to main target group and wider society in all partners countries, EU and worldwide through via more than 12 channels and all in the plan foreseen activities, including Final conference in LT, were implemented. In 4 partners countries during different project activities, such as researches, testing, final conference and other dissemination events and activities such groups were involved: * more than 230 VET students; * about 75 VET teachers; * 100 other stakeholders: (20 PE Central Offices, 9 Business, HEI students and lecturers etc.) Main results achieved: * Leader Skillbox was created as was planned in English, and translated into Lithuanian, German, Spanish and Bulgarian languages. The SkillBox consists of 5 documents: questionnaire with described situations for students self evaluation of leadership competencies, table of results, results interpretations, results according to leader competencies, theoretical content-based part - material for improvement. * Practice Enterprise methodology is complemented by a new tool for students in management positions in PE (for groups, divisions managers or the company managers itself), The created tool is the first tool in PE network for students leadership skills evaluation, that is why it is an essential part of learning outcomes achieved through practice, used as a performance tracking tool in various areas relevant to practice. To improve own leadership skills, students do step by step all 6 stages of SkillBox. They start with the self-evaluation questionnaire in the first stage there are asked to answer, providing results and its interpretation, Easy understandable material for improve and end with the self-evaluation questionnaire to evaluate their progress in leadership qualities. First of all test results reflect project impact and benefits. More than 72% participants agreed that Leader SkillBox can be integrated in their own PE and Organization and that SkillBox was developed to the point of being transferable to their own work environment without any major adaptation. Almost 75% testing participants would recommend to their friends/other VET institutions/organizations to implement the SkillBox. Almost 81% respondents agreed that SkillBox helped them to determine their own strengths and weaknesses. About 80 participants gave comments that SkillBox is interesting and easily transferred to all education levels (not only VET). SkillBox was transferred to PE Central Offices beyond project consortium already (Italian, Danish, Finnish Central Offices) as it is available in 5 EU languages and freely downloadable from Partners Web pages. It is easily adaptable to other competencies evaluation, not only leadership (because it includes 20 most popular nowadays transversal/core competencies for better students employment). SkillBox was implemented in other learning subjects (according to the testing results), it was already used in one Lithuanian and several Bulgarian schools by teachers in English lessons for language learning.