The goal of our project “On the way to the future” is to give the skills and motivation to young people who have fallen at school or are at a risk of dropping out at school, who have left empty-handed or to gain qualifications. The project involves students (16-22 years old) and teachers of European high school , vocational schools or schools part of the ‘New chance' networks established in 2012 in France. This project is focused on the creation of a sense of belonging to the European Union through the knowledge of different cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds ranges and the promotion and re-evaluation of local traditions and cultures through different and sometimes far European countries. The project intends to develop the right skills, engagement and knowledge for the creation of a European school travel agency with special attention to motivation, engagement and cultural or rural tourism. The partner schools come from different regions of Europe ( Romania , Turkey, Bulgaria and Croatia, being at a different socio-economical level of development, but having a high degree of awareness regarding the role of school and out-of-school education in developing the spirit of initiative and entrepreneurship for the becoming workforce in the European area. Each country will be partner and tour operator of this mock agency. The project aims to create strong and deep alliances between education and training providers and the world of work aimed at promoting employability. The objectives are: - developing new, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning; - making pupils’ voices the most important in the classroom - increasing motivation to learn and to be successful; - making a mock Entrepreneurship and building an entrepreneurial skill in the participating students; - promoting the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for learning and related digital competences - improving the teaching and learning of languages and promoting diversity and intercultural awareness; - promoting learn to learn; - increasing language competences among learners; - helping students to become aware of job prospects; - promoting leadership, teamwork, collaboration, cooperation; - promoting the professional development of the staff by acquiring project management skills through project work, - sharing best teaching practices and getting to know different school systems; - reducing disparities in learning outcomes affecting learners from disadvantaged backgrounds, with fewer opportunities, including learners with disabilities; - developing the citizenship and the feeling of belonging to Europe. - reconnecting students to their education. - reducing the early school dropout - selling them “the idea of success” All participants, both pupils and teachers will be beneficiaries of the project activities. Cooperation will be an intensive and fruitful one, as the project will also allow the exchange of practices among teachers from different countries, and will promote new working methods. The project results will be an opportunity for personal and professional development.
The project aimed to give the opportunity to students who are failing or dropping out of school to believe in themselves by participating concretely and actively in a European project : creating a European travel agency in order to have an objective to be achieved under favorable conditions, out of school while giving them the impression of acting freely, despite the school environment. The goal was to get them out of their comfort zone and lead them to believe in themselves and in a possible future by opening up to the world and to diversity in order to develop skills, commitment, knowledge, motivation and make them want to stay in school and maybe work in a foreign country one day. For teachers, it meant learning new, more pragmatic pedagogical practices related to preventing school dropout, increasing self-esteem and developing an entrepreneurial spirit, and creating deep and solid alliances between service providers, learning and training in the European labor market in order to promote employability and to contribute to the creation of new sectoral or cross-sectoral programmes, by developing innovative methods of vocational education.
The idea for this project, "On the way to the future" for European pupils and schools, came from the statistical data provided by the EC. Early leaving from education and training has been falling steadily in the EU since 2002, for both men and women: the drop from 17.0% in 2002 to 10.6% in 2017 constitutes steady progress in achievement of the Europe 2020 strategy target of 10%. We would therefore like to participate actively in giving the necessary skills and motivation to young people who have dropped out or who are at risk of dropping out so that they obtain a diploma and their professional integration is facilitated. "On the way to the future" is a project focused on creating a sense of belonging to the European Union through the knowledge of different cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds and the promotion and revaluation of traditions and local cultures of different European countries, sometimes very distant. It promotes mobility among students and teachers.