“Education is Partnership” is a strategic cooperation between eight stakeholder in Denmark, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy to address the high rates of early leavers from education and training in the EU, as a measure to contribute at reducing the risk of social exclusions and poverty amongst EU citizens below the age of 24 and, at the same time, contribute at reducing the rates of early leavers beyond Europe 2020. The project will promote the Danish model of educational partnerships as best practice in VET inclusive education. The model has been implemented by production schools in Denmark and gave excelling results for disadvantaged VET students. The project entails four training activities that build capacity of the partner organisations in Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania and Italy to initiate and manage educational partnerships in their own countries. As a result of the training activities, at least 20 experts in educational partnerships will be formed in the abovementioned countries. They will further plan and implement Local Multiplication Activities with the aim to establish a least 20 educational partnerships in their countries. The project will furthermore produce a booklet on best practices in inclusive education and a pack of information materials upon the need of inclusive VET education and the co-responsibility of local companies in assuring qualitative and be-spoke education for disadvantaged VET students. A number of dissemination activities are planned to reach at least 2000 project stakeholders and further promote the educational partnerships and VET inclusive education. The project involves two Danish production schools who have experience with establishing and managing educational partnerships, three VET schools in Bulgaria and Estonia, a VET centre in Italy managing 94 VET schools in Italy, and a company in Romania that cooperates with at least 10 VET schools, most of them in rural areas.
The objectives of the project were: 1. To transfer best practices developed and tested by production schools in Denmark; 2. To build capacity of the partner organisations to initiate and manage educational partnerships between schools and local companies; 3. To foster the co-responsibility for VET education amongst at least 20 companies in the partner countries.
EU reports on the achievement of the EU 2020 strategy were showing in 2018, when the project was in the preparation phase, that every fourth person in the EU was at risk of poverty or social exclusion, whilst the most vulnerable were young people below the age of 24, especially those with a low level of education caused amongst others by dropouts. At the same time, studies showed that rates of dropouts were higher amongst students enrolled in VET comparing to those attending general education, thus making vulnerable VET students highly prone to social exclusion and poverty. In this context, the project addressed the need of enhancing an inclusive VET education in order to lower the dropout rates and, by this, contribute at decreasing the risk of poverty or social exclusions amongst young people below the age of 24. The project promoted the practice of “educational partnerships” implemented in Denmark by former production schools to address the needs of their most vulnerable students. The project, thus, aimed at boosting educational partnerships in the partner countries in order to contribute at combating dropout from VET amongst students with fewer opportunities.