The project FUTURE YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS sums up to the following phases and learning objectives and outcomes. The target group are young students aged 16-18, multilingual, with their own business ideas and the wish to build up their own company. We want to accompany these students on their way to become entrepreneurs. That includes raising awareness through case studies, business simulations, internships in companies and last but not least to work on their own business plans and network with companies and sponsors. We want to show what career planning is all about, from the innovative idea to the actual planning and setting. Entrepreneurship is our core subject. Phase 1: Participants go through preparatory workshops regarding simulations in digital practice firms, intercultural awareness, diversity issues, and brainstorming for an innovative business ideas. We want to prepare our participants to raise awareness not only to put a business idea into practice but also take intercultural and diversity issues into account. Participants will then go through a start-up workshop and choose a partner company to accompany their process of entrepreneurship. This includes internships and workshops about making a business plan. Phase 1 takes place in each participant country and is accompanied by our project partners and the applicant organization. The result of Phase 1 is the draft of a business plan. In each country 30 participants will participate. From each country 10 participants (in total 60) will be chosen to go further to phase 2. Phase 2: 60 students will be going to Germany to - evaluate their business plans in an international exchange with other participants from 6 different countries- make amendments and work on the fine-tuning of to their business plans in the course of an internship in a business related company- present their business plans to an international jury. The winner group will become the FUTURE YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS 2016.Results:1. career-oriented and diversity awareness training modules2. to get familiar with tools to build the bridge between a business idea and an actual business plan3. write an own business plan accompanied by experts4. international exchange 5. internships in the home country as well as in Germany6. to benefit from an international network of companies7. to get feedback from an international juryParticipants increase their vocational competences, benefit from a multilingual approach and build up a positive and innovative attitude towards EU values and opportunities within the European Union. Our proposal brings added value at EU level through the above described outcome and results. Only international exchange with highly innovative countries, benefitting from different and diverse ideas can only be of a huge value to the European market and its relations to the world.

Backdrop The music industry in Europe and beyond offers highly attractive employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for young musicians, designers and cultural managers. Yet the creative youth’s socio-economic reality is quite often precarious. Closely intertwined with the entrepreneurial risk and only with additional income they are able to generate a decent living beyond poverty level – true for both the involved EU countries and the partner country Ghana. Research stresses a lack of skills of young music businesses as to self-employment, negotiation power and media competency. These weaknesses increase the vulnerability and hamper the whole creative sector’s prosperity. The issues of copyright and fair remuneration are major challenges.
Objectives Taking up these challenges, the project will build up young artists’, creative workers’ and managers’ capacity in order to strengthen their market position and standing vis-à-vis the established operators of the value chain. In detail it aims to improve entrepreneurship competence, alternative use of the copyright and collection practices and new income systems based on digital markets. Implementation The partners will build up a cooperation structure to implement and disseminate capacity building activities and produce an e-Publication. They will conduct three Youth Mobilities involving more than 50 young artists and cultural managers from four countries directly linked to the music business offering practical and vocational training. Moreover the beneficiaries will roll-out and multiply the project’s impact in cultural /youth organisations and within their position in the music business value chain.MethodologyThree Youth Mobilities will offer training and exchange, survey and reflection on central issues and the participants’ professional experience as addressed in the objectives. It will encourage and support participants to undertake further surveys and launch networks on these topics on local level, feeding results back to the following workshops and the final output.Results The output is an e-Publication compiling the project’s crucial contents and findings with recommendations. The outcome will be improved capacities and professional prospects, including new job opportunities of participants and partner organisations and further agents, given that they act as multipliers in broad networks.Consortium The consortium comprises competent partners from Europe (DE, FR, UK, ES) and Ghana being local, national, EU and international cultural players. They consolidate the required expertise and include central agents of the value chain in music business. The project tackles central EU topics, i.e. youth unemployment, entrepreneurship and the copyright issue. Despite disparities in a cooperation between developed and a developing country there is a solid common ground for promising joint development, which is the necessary infrastructure for digital and a dynamic music market.

Multilingualism represents an overarching question of great importance, embracing as it does all areas of an individual’s social, cultural and professional life. The literature reveals very close ties between multilingual literacy and socioeconomic conditions: the possession of adequate language competence is a prerequisite to guaranteeing employability, to enable the exercise of active citizenship in the context of economic and cultural internationalisation and to contribute to personal development and collective prosperity (ref. “Language Competencies for Employability and Growth”, the European Commission).Within the current ‘Learning Society’, mobility and the enhancement of linguistic diversity are central to the politics of education and training amongst the European member-states and the surrounding regions. Bringing together organisations (IPRASE, NILE/DELTA Language Training & Consultancy Ltd, the Goethe Institute and Bell Educational Services Ltd) that are involved in the promotion of foreign language teaching and learning processes, this project proposal of ‘Strategic Partnership’ aimed to promote innovation in the didactic planning of English and German as foreign languages with reference to the real needs expressed by specific learner targets. The Partnership developed: - a complete didactic model, separated into innovative practices and approaches to both favour English and German language learning and also to develop a greater understanding of the cultural, social and value dimensions of their respective linguistic contexts, the whole being developed according to the distinct secondary-school instructional pathways within the high school, technical school and professional school environments.- Approaches, methodologies and innovative didactic tools for the definition of ‘best practice’ models for the teaching and learning of the English and German languages, with a view to the continuous professional development of the teaching involved.- Efficacious responses to the needs of the young generation for the acquisition not only of the communicative competencies necessary for “everyday social contexts” (Basic interpersonal communication skills – BICS), but also for the more targeted competencies in the field of “academic or school language: abstract and decontextualized” (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency - CALP);- The extension of the learning environment within and beyond the classroom and of the modality and the content of learning through TIC (Information and Communication Technology).The project had been developed over thirty-six months, a period that saw the Partners involved in various cooperative activities aimed towards three principal outputs and two multiplier events.In order to develop the above-mentioned objectives, the following activities had been completed:- An action-research activity to identify a compendium of the English and German language methodological-didactic practices, of the best quality teacher-training practices, all the best digital learning practices, of the Academic Management practices and of the school needs analysis tools (O1/A1).- A planning activity involving the Partners leading towards the definition of guiding methodology frameworks for innovative didactic practices in the development of excellence in English and German language learning for the different secondary school types (O2/A1);- Learning/Teaching/Training Activities functional for the project implementation (C1);- A formulation, projection and implementation activity leading to the creation of a complete instructional model for the teaching of English and German L2 and for the Academic Management of the educational organisation, consisting of a collection of modules and teaching tools aimed at the different instructional needs found in high-schools, technical schools and professional schools, with particular attention being paid to TIC (O3/A1). This resulting didactic model had been carefully trialled in the four state-schools participating in the project under the supervision of IPRASE (O3/A2). - six international meetings that represented key moments for the planning of the project and for the follow-up on results obtainedTwo open events took place in Italy respectively to launch the development process and to present the results obtained from the project (Project Outputs), both of which may in turn be presented in the organisational and regional contexts of the Participating Partners, leading to the possibility of the continuation and further development of the project’s outputs. It has been decided to continue the collaboration with the international partners with the scope of improving the impact of the project and sustaining the mutual mission and its expectations in relation to the actions taken, leading to the strengthening of plurilingual-ism.

Young generations grow up in a world which is vastly different from the world that existed just a few decades ago. However, educational methods are very slow to change and don’t appropriately reflect the way that young people prefer to learn. For instance, many young people don’t read books for entertainment any more, so learning from a book feels “unnatural” for them. In order to offer great chances of learning that resonate with its target groups the world of education should further explore new approaches and methods of integrating them. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has shown how little youth work is prepared to reach youths when face to face contact is no longer possible. We have the technology to connect and to keep learning but what is missing are good software tools that support youth workers in this endeavor. In this project we intend to develop an innovation by creating an app that lets learners experience an interactive detective story. The idea is that learners work together as a team of detectives and interrogate a number of witnesses or suspects. In the interrogation phase each learner works alone and needs to focus on details that are revealed. Since the learners are in the role of detectives they can also choose which questions to ask. However, they only have a limited time with each witness. In the next step the learners need to combine the information they gathered by communicating with each other. This will train their communication skills but also social aspects, as well as teamwork and other soft skills. In addition to the skill training we will also focus on informal language learning with the aim of creating a solution that is highly effective in its learning results.In recent years serious games have shown an interesting potential to motivate young learners. However, so far very few well-working examples exist that successfully combine high motivation and fun with a solid learning experience. For this reason it is necessary to continue the study of new game approaches that integrate learning content seamlessly into the gameplay.The tool addresses issues that are very essential in youth work and high quality solutions are in demand by all youth workers. We will evaluate the learning success and share the experience publicly, aiming for the tool to become a best practice case which sets standards in youth work and can be used as an example to build a new generation of digital tools that support informal learning.The consortium consists of two organisations (one of them having its main focus on language learning) that are very active in the youth sector, an SME who is an expert in creating mobile apps based on learning concepts and a language school. We believe that our consortium has great possibilities and capacities to make this project have great impact on language learning for youths.

<< Background >>The OECD Enhancing Employability G20 report states in its conclusion: “while skills assessment and anticipation systems exist in many G20 economies, their results are only partially used in policy making. Similarly, despite evidence that work-based learning can provide valuable skills in line with labour market needs, few students enrol. In addition, few work-based programmes provide skills that can be easily transferred to new emerging sectors following structural change. Finally, employers often fail to make the best use of existing skills, worsening skills shortages and mismatches resulting from rapidly changing skill requirements”.In the root of all this, we find multicausal deficiencies in the interrelation between the education system and the labour market:-The transmission of erroneous beliefs about what the job market currently values (OCDE Enhancing Employability G20 Report) and the consequent clash between the expectations of students and the reality regarding conditions and work functions-Lack of educational adaptation to changes in the labour market, especially those derived from digital transformation (CBI/Pearson Education and Skills Survey 2016)-Lack of adaptation of the training curricula to the real demands of companies or the economy-Lack of training of transversal competences on the part of the students-Lack of adaptation on part of the teachers to new changes and paradigmsAccording to G. Mott (“Field-of-study mismatch and overqualification: labour market correlates and their wage penalty”-2017- ) these deficiencies results in a strong mismatch between the field-of-study and the final developed job (37,1% mismatch, 25% of it with overqualification). This result is even worse for two of the countries participating in this project. Spain has a 43,1 % mismatch (45% of it with overqualification), and Italy’s mismatch is 49,4% (31% of it with overqualification). “Due to its increased prominence since the economic crises, skills mismatch has recently become a high-priority policy concern, especially in the EU (Cedefop, 2009; ILO, 2014). As the main investments in human capital and production of skills occur in school, long before workers supply those skills to employers in the labour market, schools and school choices are natural starting points for any long-term strategy aimed at addressing skills mismatch. Indeed, a major policy recommendation advanced by the Global Agenda Council on Employment (WEF, 2014) was the development of a system of communication and collaboration between employers and relevant actors of the education system, aimed at improving alignment of the knowledge and skills students acquire in school with those required by employers and needed to find work”.This picture has to include the fact that an average of 10.2 % (in 2019) of young people aged between 18 and 24 in the EU were early leavers from education and training, which may face heightened difficulties in the labour market.Secondary education must respond to two demands of the environment: on one hand, to make them aware of the new the Labour market paradigm, the new technical and transversal competences really demanded which are aligned with new European Skills and jobs for future labour markets(European Skills Agenda 2020) ; and, on the other hand, transmit to students a realistic view of what companies are looking for and how they look for employment, so that expectations are aligned with reality and have enough knowledge and information for their decision-making when pursuing professional development. These two challenges are in the core and will be addressed by the WAKEUP project. Development of skills and competences will be in line with the EU policies and the SDG goals: European Green Deal, European Digital Strategy, Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development in particular the goals for Quality Education, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Reduced Inequalities and Sustainable Cities and Communities.<< Objectives >>WAKEUP project focuses on reducing the existing gap between the Formal Education System and the labour market by providing the students with the necessary preparation in terms of employability skills and labour market orientation, involving both companies and schools in this process. This will be achieved by the following specific objectives:SO 1. Understanding the vision and expectations of young people aged between 12 and 18 years, their parents /guardians, and teachers, regarding the professional future and the possibilities of inclusion in the labour market of the young people. And identifying what sources of information and influences them to make decisions about their professional pathway. SO2. Developing the knowledge and skills of the teachers on an innovative methodology in labour guidance to help the students to design their academic and training pathway based on their skills and abilities. Through the development of intercultural competences and critical thinking and encouraging the young students to be an active task force, undertaking their role as a part of the driving force that will lead to a digital, equalitarian and sustainable Europe in the next decades. SO3. Raising awareness among pupils and their families about the reality of the labour market in the European countries, the new demanded skills and competences in various digitised and sustainability-relevant sectors and the available academic or vocational training routes to achieve them, through an Inclusion and Diversity Strategy, seeking to promote equal opportunities and inclusion tackling gender equality and digital dimensions and environmental and climate-change challenges.SO4. Bringing closer students and the private sector to generate better understanding and connections of their realities, especially in rural areas, where there is a severe lack of social capital and information on careers. The objectives will be reached through the following:a.Establish/strengthen multi-stakeholder, multi-dimensional and multi-disciplinary partnerships at the local, national, and transnational level.b.Pilot innovative integrated approaches in a more attractive education and training program to develop employability in the Secondary Schools Centres and implement a labour market orientation methodology using of participatory and digital approachesc.Collect and disseminate best-practices through knowledge-exchange, and mutual learning to bring positive and long-lasting effects on the participating organisations.d.Enhance exchange between policy and practice, providing recommendations for improved political frameworks to maximise impact of innovative practices.The proposed action is relevant to the objectives of the call in the following aspects. -It will establish and/or strengthen existing partnerships at the local, national, and transnational level. -It will design, pilot, and evaluate innovative integrated approaches supporting the delivery of Principle 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the European Pillar of Social Rights. Each partner country will be establishing its own institutional partnerships, through a cascade system. -It will foster the development and increase of the capacity and professionalism of the participant organizations staff’s working at a EU/international level: improving management competences and internationalisation strategies while reinforcing cooperation with partners from other countries-To increase the effectiveness, coverage and impact of the integrated approaches, the action will design flexible and adaptable measures, based on the needs of target groups.-The action will collect, exchange and disseminate knowledge and best practices among participating partners and countries in order to enhance mutual learning and capacity-building, and make the produced knowledge publicly available in order to facilitate the process of replication or adaptation of the innovative integrated interventions tested in the action.<< Implementation >>The following activities will lead to the desired result:1.1. Agreements with school centresThe partnership will contact at least 30 schools (10 schools in each participating country - ES, IT, HR) and establish the agreements for the collaboration process that will cover the whole project. Different environments and school community types will be selected to have a wider view in the study, from schools in rural areas to urban areas, including less favoured neighbourhoods.1.2. Surveys and interviewsA survey for students, teachers and parents/guardians will be elaborated to identify their vision and expectations in relation to the students’ professional future. The results will be analysed and cross-checked among regions. Interviews with teachers, parents/guardians and students will be established to deepen the survey's results. 1.3. Study report (Result 1)With the results of the survey's analysis and the conclusions of the interviews, the four project partners will collaborate in the production of a report that compiles and shows an integrated vision of analysis performed. 2.1. Methodology design The methodology will address, among others, the following issues: 1. Current and future reality about employment and jobs in the European countries. 2. Transversal requirements in actual jobs. The presence of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) in Technological and Scientific areas, etc. 3. New European challenges, which will tailor future economic activities: gender equality and the dangers of Gendered Jobs, climate change and environmental sustainability (green jobs), the digital challenge. 4. Importance of being an active part of the solution for Young people.2.2. Methodology Handbook (Result 2)The methodology handbook will put together the complementary knowledge of the participants in labour orientation, teacher training, students training and European objectives and policies. Pilot training activities will test the first draft and best experiences and lessons learned will be used to optimise the handbook to its final version.2.3. Online training for teachersThe online training program will include 3 online private sessions, digital material for self-study and 2 open (public) webinars. This will be replicated in the three training participant countries: ES, IT, HR.2.4. Online training for students10 online awareness sessions per country will be held, one per participating school centre. 2.5. Awareness sessions with parentsAs with students, 10 online awareness sessions per country will be held, one per participating school centre. 2.7. Pilot reportThe training reports will be compiled in one volume and freely distributed. They will compile best practices, lessons learned or regulation issues encountered. 3.1. Workshop on policy recommendationsGI will organise an online workshop with practitioners, project partners and additional international expertise on career guidance and future of work (such as OECD or UNEVOC) to jointly develop a thorough analysis and recommendations. Such bottom-up European approach will permit developing recommendations suitable to various national circumstances, for stakeholders at different levels, beyond the geographical scope of the project.3.2. Policy recommendations document (Result 3)The recommendations will be fine-tuned and clustered for various stakeholders and levels, leading to the Policy Recommendations Document4. Events-Presentation of the project results at local levels in Spain, Italy and Croatia-Dissemination of the online training for teachers and parents in Italy-International Presentation of the policy recommendations to policy makers in Brussels, at the end of the project.<< Results >>The project will deliver three main results: 1. Study on visions and expectationsThis result focuses on understanding the demand side of the project. It will consist of a deep analysis through surveys and interviews to identify the vision and expectations of the young students, their parents /guardians, and teachers, regarding their professional future in a continuously evolving labour market.The target groups in this result are:-Students: focusing on their expectations and vision of their future.-Parents/guardians: They do have a significant influence in the students' decisions, mainly in the younger ones -Teachers: They are the main tool to inform young students during their academic pathway. The impact of the study is twofold. It will help the WAKEUP participants in the definition of the methodology to be developed, adapting it to the actual worries, expectations and possibilities of teachers, parents and students. Also, as it will be made freely available, other organizations will make use of it, to develop their own procedures, or to include new visions in the study to make it more complete and usable all along the EU. 2. Methodological guide for teacher trainingThis result focuses on the creation, test and validation of a methodology that can be put into practice in each partner's country. Other projects have addressed the guidance of students towards the labour market. The innovative character of this result stays in:-The developed methodology is not addressed to students, but to the teachers. This means that the guidance capacity and knowledge stays in the education centres as an added value, long after the guided students have left.-The guidance is not focused on any specific profession or skill. General and transversal skills or attitudes will be analysed and encouraged. The methodology will try to guide the students not only in the type of work they can do, but also in the kind of workers they want to be.-Young future workers are considered an active part of the community. The way they approach and develop their profession will contribute to defining our society in the incoming decades.A cascade impact is expected in this result. Impact on three different stakeholders: 1. Students (Youth): Dynamic and attractive work methodologies in the classroom, capable of generating interest. 2. Teachers: Support to incorporate new ways of working that capture the attention of students. Training on work by competences and its subsequent evaluation. Information on changes in the labour market and the expectations of companies for selection and hiring. 3.Companies and hiring organisations: Hire professionals who respond to your demands and the new requirements of the labour market, in order to guarantee the best performance possible3. Policy recommendationsDuring the implementation of the WAKEUP project activities, each project partner will operate in a specific legal, political, systemic and structural environment. Such diverse experiences will provide important information on factors that hinder or, on the contrary, empower young people’s informed transition to a new world of work. Collecting this information at different levels and stages of implementation across all partner countries will be key to jointly developing recommendations on how to create most favourable conditions and systemic improvements.In a second stage, these recommendations will be shared with policy makers, practitioners and other relevant stakeholders. The Policy Recommendations will support our efforts to increase political awareness of the need for enhanced career orientation in times of constant labour market evolution. It will improve implementation and increase the impact of the WAKEUP Project outputs in various contexts and the political and administrative support as well as practitioners’ interest to implement the WAKEUP Project and other career orientation initiatives in various schools and countries.