Teachers of six secondary schools from Germany, Iceland, Romania, Italy, Spain and Hungary will take part in the two-year long project who have a strong commitment to educate young people for entrepreneurship thinking and who are ready to renew their professional knowledge. The title of the project is Education & Entrepreneurship. The motivation for the planned project is to find and collect good practices about how and why we teach entrepreneurial skills. The methodology of entrepreneurial thinking will be adapted by each school according to their own school environment. "Entrepreneurship education" teaches how you can form your future life, not just your own business. The role of the teachers is a crucial point in the process of any educational system, as they can influence the achievements of their students. However, we cannot find an exact subject at schools for entrepreneurship education, as it is between experience-based learning and project work. The teachers must have sense of creativity and different competences concerning entrepreneurial skills, teachers need to create a school environment, which enforces creativity and risk-taking and defines mistakes and failures as learning opportunity. The aim of the project is to study the competence ‘Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship’ and the possibilities for its development in partner schools. One of the eight key competences is ‘Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship’, which refers to an individual's ability to turn ideas into action. Entrepreneurship is a way of thinking about challenges and opportunities. Our main aim is to study what kind of formal and non-formal teaching methods are useful for developing the initiative and the entrepreneurship competences in the teaching process in the vocational training system. One of the most important part of the project is the ‘Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship’ competence, we will work on three main components – knowledge, skills, attitudes- with its theoretical background and applied teaching methods. Each project partner will form a group of students, 15-20 people, to test the impact of the tried methods. Teachers will collect good practices, which will be tested by student’s groups. We want to create learning outcomes for both teachers and students such as teaching materials, instructions, good practices, lesson plans cooperative lesson plans, teaching materials, useful links. Teachers will widen their methods and strategies to set up schools with entrepreneurship thinking. All the teachers will share their experience in their own schools to promote the obtained knowledge and results about entrepreneurial skills and teaching methods. These methods could be evaluation sheets, videos about different subjects to share previous knowledge and experience about entrepreneurship skills. The collected materials will be applied for educational purposes in the future, which will serve as a handbook for both teachers and students to be successful on the labour market. The final product will be a collection of good practices, lesson plans, and methods in the form of a project book in English and it will be published in the mother language of all partner countries as well. Both teachers and students’ groups will work and cooperate on eTwinning Portal, where we will create a project. eTwinning TwinSpace gives the opportunity to share our products and good practices, to exchange ideas and have conversations or organise online meetings. We believe that the participation of the six schools and the active cooperation of their teachers and students will result the development of their schools, which is the main aim of our project. We want to develop the entrepreneur skills and competences of our students and prepare them for labour market empowering them with the knowledge of entrepreneurial thinking.
Teachers from secondary schools from six countries participated in the two-year project: Germany, Iceland, Romania, Italy, Spain and Hungary. All the participating teachers had in common that they were committed to educating young people to think entrepreneurially and were ready to renew their professional knowledge. The aim of the project was to collect good practices as the project progressed and examined why it is important to develop entrepreneurial skills among students. We agreed that the role of the teacher is crucial in any educational system, as they can influence the results of their students and their future. Because of the different competencies for entrepreneurship, teachers need to create a school environment that enforces creativity and risk-taking, and defines mistakes and failures as learning opportunities. The aim of the project was to study the "initiative and entrepreneurship" competence and its development possibilities in the partner countries. One of the eight key competencies is "initiative and entrepreneurship", which refers to the individual's ability to implement ideas. The main goal was to examine what formal and non-formal methods are used in the teaching processes of the partner countries in the vocational training system. One of the most important parts of the project is the "initiative and entrepreneurship" competence, which has three main components: knowledge, skills, and attitude. The mobilities were dedicated to a detailed examination of these three components, according to pre-planned activities. As a first step, each project partner formed a student group of 15-20 people with the aim of testing the new methods and good practices learned during the project and examining their effects. During the mobilities, the teachers collected good practices, which were tested in the student groups after each mobility In each country, we got to know the legal environment of education, the legislation on vocational training, and the local curricula, the social, economic and institutional environment. During the analysis, we focused on a detailed examination of each component of entrepreneurship in each country. In Hungary: Presentation of entrepreneurial thinking and entrepreneurial spirit In Germany: Creativity, innovation, adaptability Romania: the importance of teamwork Iceland: Entrepreneurial and social competences Spain: Problem solving, the importance of communication, its role in entrepreneurial competence Sicily: Risk reduction, the role of management in business After the mobilities, the task of the partner countries was to apply the methods in the student groups formed at the beginning of the project. The teachers made a summary of these experiences, evaluated them, and then presented them to the staff in the partner countries till the next meeting. After that, each country created a lesson plan according to the given topic, to which reflections were added. Results of the project: Good practices, lesson plans, the results of the questionnaires, a video of the two-year work, project book: lesson plans, cooperative lesson plans, reflections, a poster, a project website. The teachers try out the new methods learned in the project not only in the student group created for testing, but also they try to apply them as widely as possible in other student groups. In addition, the teachers participating in the project shared their experiences in their own school with the teachers, who are also trying out the new practices in the groups of students they teach. The materials collected during the project will be used for educational purposes in the future, which will be published on common platforms in all schools. The project book is published in the mother tongue of each partner country and in the common working language, in English as well. As a long-term impact of the project, we want to develop the entrepreneurial skills and competencies with as many students as possible and prepare them for the labour market, strengthening them with knowledge of entrepreneurial thinking. A long-term effect is an organization of teachers and the maintenance of their relationships and the further sharing of good practices even after finishing the project. According to our plans, more and more schools will apply the good practices that we have learned and published, so that as many students with entrepreneurial competences leave the schools as possible.