Education for entrepreneurship can be particularly effective in initial vocational training, as learners are close to entering working life and self-employment may be a valuable option for them. Entrepreneurship is included in the national curricula for vocational education in a majority of European countries, at least to some extent. However, programmes and activities included in those figures may differ greatly in intensity and effectiveness. In any case, there is in general a perception that there is still a gap to be filled.

The partners of the present project to a larger or smaller extent observe this problem in their curricula, especially in relation to the technically-oriented programs. It has been proved, that regardless of the vocational training area, the most effective way to teach entrepreneurship is to have students participate in practical projects and activities, in which learning by doing is emphasized and real experience with entrepreneurship is gained.

The partners will commonly develop an intellectual result – an educational online platform, which will include an introductory course about starting a business aimed at secondary-level VET learners. This educational platform and the online course incorporated within it will cover a progression of topics necessary for successful business creation.

The WEB platform will have several sections:

• Project description;
• Online course – freely available to the general public;
• Success Stories – interviews with young businesses;
• Video lectures;
• Interactive map of support providing organizations, and other sections devoted to business development and implementation, and more.

To achieve the above stated, the project will also involve several learning activities:

• Short-term joint staff training event in Cyprus on online course development.
• Short-term exchanges and blended mobilities of groups of pupils between the partner institutions – these will involve learning through real experiences with young businesses and business supporting organizations resulting in creation of additional contents for the platform.
• International conference – VET education for entrepreneurship.

The aims of the present project, amongst others, are developing those personal attributes and generally applicable skills that form the basis of an entrepreneurial mindset and behaviour, raising students’ awareness of self-employment and entrepreneurship as possible career options, boosting entrepreneurship in education through creation of an attractive teaching and learning tool, and providing specific business skills and knowledge of how to start and successfully run a business. The partners hope to increase the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship among the players of the VET sector and promote education for entrepreneurship.

Budget: Funding from the European Commission - 129 706, 00 EUR (100%)

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

WHAT IS HAPPENING?

From 25/11/2019 till 29/11/2019 staff members of project partner institutions participated in a short joint staff training activity by attending a training course “Towards E-learning: Online Course Development” organized and hosted by the project partner Dorea Educational Institute in Cyprus. 5 representatives of the Latvian project team and 4 representatives of the German project team participated in this training, while the Turkish partner participated remotely as they faced difficulties to participate on site.

The training was intentionally held in the beginning of the project, so that the project team members of partner institutions can learn at least the basics of online course creation, to have a broader understanding, which will further enable the partners to develop a well-structured and thought-out project’s intellectual result.

The 5-day training course covered and introduced:

• basic elements needed to design and create a successful online learning course – from generating ideas, discussing tools needed, to the final creation of online course;
• advantages and challenges of teaching in the online environment, assessing the online course and students’ development and much more;
• approaches to creating a course curriculum;
• principles of online course design, key components;
• platforms for online course development;
• approaches to recording and editing a course session;
• tools for recording and editing course material (Articulate, Camtasia, etc).

Besides the course attendance, the learning activity in Cyprus was also the first face-to-face meeting by partners. The partners got introduced, had the chance to discuss about the project activities and plan the tasks that need to be carried out during the next few months, signed partnership agreements, discussed financial matters, the working plan for the development of the project’s intellectual result, organization of learning activities and dissemination activities.

The partners proposed the course thematical structure, discussed the need for common methodological guidelines, as well as agreed on a technical solution to be used for generation of the planned intellectual output.