The objective of this project was to strengthen the students' professional training in a working environment with modern facilities specific to the fields of qualification, to help them acquire skills in line with European standards and facilitate their personal development, social inclusion, active citizenship and employability. The specific objectives of the project were: 1. Acquiring knowledge and acquiring relevant and transferable skills and competences, in accordance with the new occupational standards, for 55 students, in order to facilitate professional development and ensuring better social inclusion 2. Improving language skills and broadening the cultural horizon of participants to better adapt to a multicultural socio-professional environment 3. Development of 10 partnerships with European companies that promote work-based learning, in order to know European requirements, standards and practices. In the context of the present job market, the young needed a real practical and professional training from high-school. This was already part of the educational process since, without benefitting from practical training stages, the training of the students was incomplete. For the students, these stages were the perfect opportunity of acquiring applied professional skills. The target group, besides the obvious advantages of direct learning and practical and theoretical training, were motivated to behave in such a manner so as to meet the challenges and changes, be they social, economic, technological and environmental, of this century. The practical activities triggered students in becoming aware of the importance of concentrating the learning process on obtaining results, with a main focus on developing the know-how, skills and attitudes of the new occupational standards, enabling the implementation of ECVET and Europass instruments. Also, communicating in an international language (English) within an intercultural environment enabled students to develop special social skills, fight intolerance and discrimination, deepen the feeling of belonging to the European society which granted equal opportunity to all its citizens.
According to Eurosat, the underfunding of vocational education has placed Romania on the first places in the school dropout. The teaching staff is aging and largely unsuited to current technologies. In the current context of the labour market, it is clear that young people need real practical training and career preparation from school. Without competitive internships of practical training, employability is difficult. For the students of our school, coming from single-parent families or with parents who have gone abroad, with reduced material possibilities, these internships represent a real chance to acquire and develop applied professional skills. The lack of a family to support them in the educational endeavor, to instill in them the desire to accumulate, to develop, to build a future, the lack of an affective and motivational environment, besides the material deprivations, makes them vulnerable to the future. The participation in this project, in addition to the advantages generated by direct learning and theoretical and practical training, motivated them to adopt a behavior necessary to face the social, economic and technological challenges and changes they face during this period. This project offered the possibility of training and developing the professional and personal competences of 55 pupils from the 10th and 11th grades, vocational education, for all the qualifications existing in the school in the fields of Mechanics, Constructions, Installations and Public Works and Public Catering.