Working Europe
Start date: Sep 1, 2015,
End date: Aug 31, 2017
PROJECT
FINISHED
Our project is called “WE – Working Europe”. Our main goal is to increase our students awareness of entrepreneurship and employability on the European labour market, which is closely interconnected by the European Single Market resulting in dependencies and synergies. In Europe today, the students face new challenges regarding the labour market, not only because of differing but generally high rates of unemployment but also because of the new demands on a global market. Therefore, the students need to gain knowledge about the legal presuppositions, procedures and skills necessary to compete and be successful in the European world of work. The project takes these needs into account by practically approaching the examination of the following sub-topics:
1. Innovation, hosted by Sweden
2. Entrepreneurship, hosted by Norway
3. Employment, hosted by Germany
4. Mobility, hosted by Spain.
Each of the four modules, which complement each other, will contribute to the students’ participation in the European labour market. Firstly, “innovation” sparks and furthers the students’ creativity to obtain or develop the competitiveness of the European Single Market. Innovative ways of thinking are channelled during the visit of a technological innovation centre (IDEON) in Sweden resulting in a photo story documenting this activity. Secondly, “entrepreneurship” demonstrates the possibility and process of founding companies (hopefully based on innovative ideas) to the students, which may result in the increase of future employers and employees. In order to do so, students will simulate the foundation of a firm in Norway and be faced with a problem of the European labour market during a management game, which will be digitally documented. The experiences gained on a one-day work placement at one of the workplaces cooperating with the Norwegian school will be published in the form of a report, which leads over to “employment”. This, thirdly, prepares students on a practical level to become employees by enabling them to write applications and practicing job interviews in different European countries. Therefore, a simulated job interview will be filmed and examined with the help of a human resources manager in Germany. Also, an interview with a representative of a multinational company concerning their European orientation will be recorded and simultaneously creates a link to the final focus “mobility”. This is centred around chances, challenges and future perspectives of inner-European labour migration, including the respective legal framework. These topics will be examined during the conduction of a survey on a sample basis about working migration in Spain. Combining these perspectives the project furthers the acquisition of competences necessary for European employability, raising the awareness of Europe as a place of job opportunities.
In a methodologically diverse approach, all of the above mentioned modules will be explored and prepared at each partner school in the respective home countries, the acquired knowledge and products:
1. a power-point-presentation about innovative businesses,
2. a method guide about business competences,
3. letters of application as well as videos of job interviews,
4. a digital corkboard about the legal framework for employees
will be compared on the project meeting and also enlarged upon during the joint activities.
The four participating schools represent the diversity of the European labour market and its differing structures because they are situated in the North (Sweden and Norway), the middle (Germany) and the South (Spain) of Europe. Each exchange meeting has been assigned a topic due to the special profile of the respective school organising it:
1. Polhemskolan, Lund: offers the connection to the Lund University and the innovation centre (IDEON)
2. Mailand videregående skole, Lørenskog: has already established a youth firm and provides the respective background knowledge
3. Erich Kästner Gymnasium Laatzen: offers vocational advisory and a cooperation with an international company in Hanover
4. IES. Berenguela de Casilla, Bolaños de Calatrava: establishes a network with their alumni with international working experience.
The final product and result of our project, an educational online board game, will take the form of a multiple choice questionnaire and also serves as the means of saving the intermediate results of the sub-phases, which will be the basis for the questions as well as answers. It will give our students the possibility to check and train their competences for the European working market at any time. Also, this opportunity will be available to other students after the project has ended, because the game will be accessible online for everyone. Not only the improvement of the students’ employability and their knowledge gained during the project activities but also the networking of the schools – and possibly even the region – form the long term impact of the project.