Towards a Brighter Future
Preventing Dropping Out in an Inclusive School
Comenius Bilateral Project
Our Project
Early school leaving is an urgent and serious problem in Europe, both for individuals and society as a whole. According to the European Commission, one in seven young people leaves school without finishing secondary education. One in seven young people who are more likely to end up unemployed, poor or marginalized.
Beyond the cost to individuals, early school leaving influence economic growth and competitiveness. Low levels of education have severe consequences for young people, but also high economic and social costs for society.
There are many reasons why some young people give up school prematurely: learning difficulties, social problems or a lack of motivation, guidance or support. However, the impacts of individual and social conditions are also affected by the set-up of the educational system and the environment in schools. Since there is not a single reason for leaving education or vocational training, there are no easy answers.
With this project, we will try to find out some answers and to set up some innovative methods/strategies/activities to prevent school drop-out in the vocational education sector in our countries.
Teachers, students, parents and local entities will work together to exchange practices and knowledge on the most effective ways to keep young people in education and training and to fight against early school leaving.
We'll focus on teaching/learning methods which promote personal and social growth, career development, and civic responsibility, while involving parents and local entities which will make the connection between school and real life more visible for students.
The motivation for this project comes from the reality we face in our classrooms, the fact that our students are dropping out school without having the needed qualifications to face the world of work and their own lives. The fact that many students are bored and see no connection between academic life and "real" life. This is a very serious problem that we face nowadays and we´ll try to set up innovative and creative solutions for it.
This project is needed to try to prevent early school leaving in our both regions by involving young people, but also their parents and local communities in building up materials and tools with the suggestions made by the students themselves, thus making them more effective and reliable.
We will try to establish cooperation across sectors such as education, youth and employment/enterprises to promote different forms of learning to keep young people in education and training.
The aim of the project is to reduce the dropout rates of students in vocational education, by providing innovative methods/strategies/activities built with the suggestions made by the students themselves, and to put into practice education that prepares our students, first of all, for "real" life and, after that, as citizens of the world by installing such values as sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, tolerance, understanding and communication.
While doing this, we also want to increase students´ motivation and to make learning more attractive, to promote the use of ICT and to improve the pupils’ comprehension and expression in foreign languages.
In what concerns teachers, they will have an opportunity to exchange practices of teaching methods and approaches, as well as upgrading their professional knowledge and skills.