The project, both in the way in which it was carried out and thanks to the chosen training fields, responded both to the objectives indicated by Community and national education and training policies (aimed at encouraging training paths that facilitate the acquisition of skills and competences throughout the life cycle) and to those of our Institute’s European Development Plan. The specific objectives of the project are: • Improvement of technical, transversal and linguistic skills of the students involved; • Improvement of technical and transversal skills of teaching staff; • Increasing the employability of beneficiaries; • Foster the inclusion and participation of students with BES and fewer opportunities and stimulate motivation in the school or study pathway; • Strengthen the Project Development Core’s international project management skills; • Increasing the network of partners at European level and the capacity for transnational cooperation with a view to modernising education and training systems; • Recognition and validation of skills; • Design innovative school-work pathways.
The 2017 OECD Report “Education at a Glance” showed that in Italy only 25% of students graduate in STEM disciplines. A report by the MGI indicates that in less than ten years the demand for STEM jobs will triple compared to traditional jobs and by 2025 there will be 7 million new jobs. In addition, robots and automated systems will replace many workers and, as highlighted by Dell Technologies' “Realizing 2030” study, people and machines will work as an integrated team. These issues are relevant for our country, which has always had a strong manufacturing traction, and for Abruzzo itself, which employs 23. 5% of the workforce in a manufacturing sector with an industrial and craft vocation. There is therefore a need in Europe to improve and enrich education programmes to enable students to cope with the demands of the new economic system. In its role of training and preparation, the IIS E. Mattei intended to focus on strengthening the skills of teaching staff in the design of innovative work-study pathways, and on raising the STEM skills of students through on-the-job training in Europe.