Participants: partner schools and students

The partner schools are:

• IES PABLO PICASSO, MÁLAGA, SPAIN 

We are a comprehensive secondary school (12-18 years-old) located in a working-class neighbourhood in Malaga. We have compulsory and non-compulsory secondary education students and a vocational training course on ICT. We have approximately 600 students. Most students are Spanish but we also have approximately an almost ten percent of immigrant students, not to mentionsecond generation students, with Spanish nationality but foreign parents. The school staff consists of 55 people, including janitorial staff, teachers, one school counsellor, a special needs teacher. We deal mostly with formal academic training but we eagerly try to engage our students in activities which are not strictly academic, to encourage cultural awareness, social inclusion, critical thinking or personal development. Spain, as the rest of our partner countries has recently been stuck with a hard economic crisis which is just starting to recede. This has resulted in visible disaffection for school among our students, mainly disadvantaged students coming from families with financial problems. Interest in pursuing university degrees has dropped significantly. We firmly believe a great way to counteract this problem is to give them entrepreneurial tools to feel significant and open their possibilities in the world of work or to continue their education. This project aims at working on ways to include entrepreneurial skills, so it's perfectly suited for our needs.

• BUDAPESTI GAZDASÁGI SZAKKÉPZÉSI CENTRUM SZENT ISTVÁN KÖZGAZDASÁI SZAKGIMNÁZIUMA ÉS KOLLÉGIUMA, BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

The Saint Stephen Secondary School of Economics is a 131-year-old vocational secondary school in Budapest. The school employs 60 teachers. 458 (14-18 year-old) students attend our school. They specialise in economics or sports-related subjects. They also have an opportunity to continue their studies at our school in the fields of accountancy for enterprises or coaching in sports. Currently 71 (19-21-year-old) students take part in these special training courses. As for our motivation, there are several factors. Our school considers foreign languages and IT skills very important to be able to compete at the labour market. We believe an Erasmus + programme would definitely encourage students to take language learning more seriously. An international cooperation would make them use the language they are learning in real life situations which would be an enjoyable experience for them with a lasting influence. Hungary has recently introduced a compulsory 50-hour social service for the community, which is an indispensable prerequisite to take the final exams. We organise charity events, our students are expected to do voluntary work for the environment, the school and animals. We regard the international cooperation as a means to raise their interest in voluntary work. It means an opportunity to develop social competences, discuss cultural topics or develop critical thinking. As for entrepreneurship, our students are required to plan their own enterprises several times during their economic studies. They need to learn the basics of enterprises and plan the inner and outer environment of their business taking into consideration the given budget. Although they possess the necessary knowledge and essential competences to plan an enterprise and elaborate the details, they often do not think it is worth it. They always consider this task as a mandatory requirement and they fulfil it half-heartedly. We assume the international project will help us try a new approach for entrepreneurship education. With this project we expect to find ways to make our students feel eager to remain in education for longer time, obtain more degrees, and then become an active member of the national and international workforce.

• EKONOMSKA SKOLA BRACA RADIC, DAKOVO, CROATIA

EKONOMSKA SKOLA BRACE RADICA DJAKOVO is a secondary vocational business school. The school is situated in an working-class urban area. The High Comprehensive School Brace Radica has got a population of 524 students who can choose among four different courses: economics, trade business and commercialism, administration and office business. Entrepreneurship education is mainly worked in specific subjects, so we want to try need the cross-curricular approach suggested in this project. The school becomes recognizable in the civil community for its humanitarian activities.

For years its students and teachers participate in collecting food for the poorest families in the region and toys for poor children at Christmas time. The school is also involved in activities helping NGO of the sick of sclerosis multiplex on national level. Since recently the Club of young volunteers has been formed and it is expected that service learning and active citizenship will continue to be even more present in our institution. We already had two Comenius 1, one Comenius 3 and number of other European projects. Our students participated in numerous international projects such as exchanges of students, ECO-schools, ENO-project, business correspondence and some written projects with Collegiul Economic Buzau. Since 2002 the school has been participating in Comenius partnership projects and Comenius Network NEAC as a silent partner. This project is a great chance to continue implementing our European Development Plan.

• ZESPOL SZKOL – III LICEUM OGOLNOKSZTALCACE IM. DR WL. BIEGANSKIEGO, CZESTOCHOWA, POLAND

Zespol Szkol im.dr Wladyslawa Bieganskiego is a general secondary school focused on preparing the student to take the process of further education in the fields of humanities and science. Our students are diverse in terms of skills, abilities and hard work and involvement in educational process. Currently, our school educates about 500 students aged 16-19, and the staff consists of About 50 paid staff (40 teachers and 10 administrative workers). We are a school whose activities are focused on developing young people to their full potential and preparing them for life as sociallyaware citizens in the modern world . At our school we are open to innovation and change and would like to give it a European dimension, this is why participating in this project is a great opportunity.

First, it means developing our European Development Plan. Moreover, there's also an specific motivation. Our school for several years has been struggling with the difficulties resulting from the ongoing demographic/population decline in the city and in the county and progressive unemployment. These problems affect students who generally are no longer willing to participate in school life as well as at a local level. In the present reality our students urgently need to develop social and entrepreneurial skills such as the ability to think independently and creatively to be able to engage in activities to offer them future prospects and a motivation to participate both in their school and local community. Entrepreneurship classes are not enough for these purposes. We need to integrate the teaching of such skills in other subject, an innovative approach in this project. We expect from this project to work on new solutions that will help us develop the skills of our students, motivate them and provide them all with the same opportunities in life, independent from their origin or background.

HAVE A LOOK AT OUR PARTICIPATING STUDENTS!!

The Croatian group.  .

The Hungarian groups. See their introduction here and here and also here.

The Polish group. See their introduction here.

The Spanish groups. See their introduction here, here and also here.