Empowered NEET through International mobility experiences
How International mobility experiences can have a real impact on NEETs’?
To promote borderless European early school leaving reduction policies through Second Chance Education and to adjust national policies to a European transnational setting is one of the aims of this study, while mainstreaming youth and citizens to regular education and employment promoting opportunities in the labour market of European societies.
The mobility of workers and trainees plays an important role in creating new job opportunities and improving the chances of entering the European labour market. The International mobility experience is increasingly recognised as a new non-formal education opportunity through which to gain valuable personal and professional skills and thus promote your career.
After several studies, it is confirmed that most of the people involved in such mobility experiences have added values in terms of skills, open mind, self-confidence etc.
So the International Placement is a concrete, real and enriching experience for young people and for the hosting local community and company, thanks to a reciprocal exchange of expertise, knowledge and experience.
The approach used during the mobility period is the key to its success. All the parties involved are co-responsible for the activities that will be carried out, the objectives and the results. A positive approach, an open communication and a relationship based on trust and respect will be the basic tools for everyone.
Mobility for disadvantaged youngsters is a relatively new phenomenon. The experiences in second chance schools show that these actions are successful. Looking at the success of mobility in higher education, the transfer of success is made to the second chance target group and the NEET- Not in Education, Employment or Training- group with distance to the labour market at risk of social exclusion.
A lack of foreign language skills, problems in finding an appropriate placement and being in contact with a new culture are among the main obstacles of mobility. There are also problems with the quality of the mobility programmes. More than 50% of the students have had bad experiences during EU placements, in particular problems with the pre-departure tutoring as well as work-based experience or practical training provided by the companies, which did not suit their demands and educational backgrounds.
To be involved in a learning path through a mobility experience, it helps that the participants know themselves better, identifying their personal and professional objectives and expectations, developing a sense of responsibility, initiative and entrepreneurship.
International mobility experiences have a real impact on people, above all if they know how to capitalise on and promote their experience after their return. Key competences acquired through international mobility experiences are very important in our society and they make participants more flexible and proactive in the labour market. They also allow the participants to develop intercultural and communication competences in a more interconnected world.
We aim to support the process through providing practical assistance through all stages of the trajectory via SecondChanceEducation.eu.
We expect all involved actors to acquire new skills and competences during the project at both personal and professional levels. That's why we created the Mobility Handbook.
The Handbook for International placements in Second Chance Education aims to foster international workplace training for students and to provide guidance to all actors involved in the mobility (Sending Organization/Hosting Organization, Students/learners/NEETs,
Teachers, trainers and mentors) to improve the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of international workplace training activities at the international level.
The Handbook supports all the above mentioned actors during the all phases of the mobility experience.
The results of our underlying research clearly demonstrate that teachers across Europe have a need for an easily-accessible, online platform which provides tools as well as practical advice regarding mobility trajectories.
Currently less than half (42,59%) of Second Chance Education (SCE) practitioners are in collaboration with teachers or schools from other countries. Thus, international cooperation among teachers and trainers can be strengthened across Europe, especially within SCE. A related aim of the SCE community is to stay up-to-date about education initiatives across Europe and European-level initiatives for schools - thus we will inform you about potential prospects and also support you in facilitating mobility for your students.
The Mobility Handbook is a time-saver
We provide a selection of mobility tools and aim to grow this database as more diverse teachers start to engage with us. With My Mobility Handbook you can
- Create an account;
- Sign in and pick and choose which tools are relevant for your situation by adding them to your Favourites;
- Compile a tailored product to support your students with reliable high-quality documents and templates including country-specific information;
- Filter documents by target group, phase of placement and destination country.
Share, disseminate and stay in touch!
When you find something useful, you want to share it - right? That's why we added the Share function to My Mobility Handbook: you don't work in a vacuum and neither does our site. We realize that you regularly share documents with students and colleagues, so we anticipate and facilitate this. Simply share ‘My Mobility Handbook' by clicking the 'Share' button and entering the email address of the recipient.
DISCO - DIgital Second Chance Opportunities
[su_tabs active="1" vertical="yes"]What does it support [su_tab title="Objectives"]
- To improve the quality of adult education and Second Chance Schools
- To mainstream youth and citizens to regular education and employment promoting opportunities in the labour market of European societies
- To sensitize teachers and trainers to improve the educational skills and be aware of digital media support at work
- To promote a borderless European early school leaving reduction policies through Second Chance Education and to adjust national policies to a European transnational setting
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[su_tab title="Activities"]
- Developing a rating/grading system in which teachers/trainers and beneficiaries can rate and comment the good practices available on the database
- Introducing e-portfolio to 10 NEET beneficiaries in each partner organization, for six months
- Delivery of international placements and work experiences 40 NEET beneficiaries
- Testing at least 20 good practices with teachers/trainers and learners to exploit the online community
- Benchmarking against the developed assessment tool
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[su_tab title="Results"]
- Online grading system for good practices in Second Chance Education
- Tailor-made e-portfolio tool for international placements
- Knowledge Centre e-learning platform
- Training database for continuing education for teachers/trainers
- Online and offline European community
- Self-assessment tool for teachers/trainers and peer assessment system for the organisations in Second Chance Education
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[su_tab title="Partners"]
- Coordinator: Weiterbildungskolleg Monchengladbach (Germany)
- Stichting Euricon (The Netherlands)
- Betawerk B.V. (The Netherlands)
- CKU Sopot (Poland)
- Social Phoenix Enterprise (United Kingdom)
- efVET (The Netherlands)
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[su_tab title="Info & contacts"]
Follow the project IN ACTION
Date of project: 01/09/2014 - 30/08/2016
DG of reference: DG EAC, National Agency (Germany), Erasmus+ Key Activity 2 Strategic Partnership for adult education
Contact: CESIE: irene.pizzo@cesie.org
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