Many initiatives are taking place in Europe in order to improve the employment situation of young adults, e.g. with Youth Guarantee implementation, the number of NEETs aged 15–29 has slightly decreased, from around 14 million at the height of the crisis to 12.5 million in 2016 (14.2%). The NEETs situation is better today than a few years ago but still, unemployment rates in the group of NEETs is much higher when comparing to the unemployment rates of overall unemployment in given country. Looking at the latest available annual data from Eurostat (Labour Force Survey, 2017), in all partner countries, in NEETs group, unemployment is at higher rate than the EU average (EU:10,9; GR:15,3; IT: 20,0 ;ES: 13,3; PL: 13,4). However, these figures do not tell the full story as many young people are not registered as unemployed and are not looking for a job due to a variety of factors, including family responsibilities or health issues but also discouragement and a lack of incentive to register as unemployed. In addition, the crisis has hit the young population hard and fighting youth unemployment remains a priority [Investing in Europe’s Youth]. In order to improve NEETs situation, the education has to give young people the right set of skills needed on the labour market. The Forbes published article with headline, “90% of start-ups fail”. This article refers to number of start-up businesses that fail during their first 3 years. In all countries there is a need to link theory with work practice. The ideal situation for young adults that want to be entrepreneurs could be, if they learn directly from those that are already successful entrepreneurs. As an answer to the above problems, the main aim of the project is to extend and develop competencies of educators of adults in the area of entrepreneurial skills (in non-formal settings) through providing them with guidance and motivation strategies and equipping with innovative solution - Interactive toolset for Educators of young adult people which will support the development of their skills needed for boosting entrepreneurship among NEETs. This toolset will allow Educators for assessing the skills of NEETs, propose them customised learning path and provide adapted training and in effect connect young adults and real life entrepreneurs of small and micro businesses. The project will directly involve educators of adults, particularly NEETs, in Greece, Italy, Spain and Poland. They will participate in various stages of the project taking part in research, contribute to the development of the report and toolset, test and evaluate it, participate in trainings. In addition to that, other participants from the area of adult education will be informed about the project results. Minimum of 300 stakeholders will take part in dedicated to the project multiplication events in all partner countries and others will be informed at different occasions and via internet. This number will be about 20000. Besides activities connected with management, evaluation and dissemination, the partners will carry out activities leading directly to preparation of two outputs. From the beginning of the project, parallel research will take place: one among Educators of adults and second, among representatives of micro and small businesses. They will end with report which will reveal the entrepreneurial methods used in educating of young adults and the second, the skills required today for being employed or running a business from the point of view of successful entrepreneurs. The report will be prepared as interactive resource accessible online and via mobile app. It will also be the base for creation of the interactive toolset supporting adult educators in boosting entrepreneurship among NEETs which will allow for assessment of needs and through customised learning path will point to the appropriate training. The toolset will be also alternatively possible for self-assessment and self-administered earning by young people. The partners plan wide dissemination of the project and expect that the impact will be significant especially on Educators of NEETs but also on young adults who can use the resources of the toolset themselves. In the long run, the young adults, especially NEETs prepared by better educated Educators with the use of new methods and updated to today's needs content will have the right set of sills for working or opening and running own business successfully. In the long run the project will have impact on reducing unemployment among young adults and on reducing number of NEETs.
The partnership as a whole wanted to achieve its aim which was to extend and competencies of educators of adults in the area of entrepreneurial skills (in non-formal settings) through providing them with guidance and motivation strategies and equipping with innovative solution - Interactive toolset for Educators of young adult people which will support the development of their skills needed for boosting entrepreneurship among NEETs. This toolset allows educators for assessing the skills of NEETs, propose them customised learning path and provide adapted training and in effect connect young adults and real life entrepreneurs of small and micro businesses. In addition to the overall goal, partners had the following expectations: offering modernised tools to build entrepreneurship competencies more responding to needs of young adults that could realistically increase their interest in becoming an entrepreneur, increasing the attention of NEETs to entrepreneurship as the relevant career choice, increasing organisations' internal knowledge base in the area of modern skills for entrepreneurship by developing and exchanging knowledge with diversified international partners, adding to the portfolio of educational solutions an innovative, open solution for entrepreneurship education.
The partners applied for the project in order to achieve common goal which was improving NEETs situation. Each partner organisation works with and supports NEETs offering training and/or counselling and each applied for this project in order to help their learners in development of entrepreneurial competences which can help them become successful entrepreneurs. All partners were also interested in having innovative tools in the form of mobile report and the toolset, in which development they could participate.