Background to the Project

The Lisbon and Copenhagen declarations aim Europe to be the world reference in education. Improved quality and higher status for vocational education are main elements in these declarations. Career guidance and entrepreneurship are important tools to reach these goals.

Our project idea is aimed at bringing us towards the goal that Europe shall be the worlds most competitive region before 2010. We believe that we need to improve the Guidance and Counselling in secondary education towards a Career Guidance direction to develop entrepreneurial skills in young people.

We believe that the Guidance and Counselling Services and closer cooperation between businesses and education system must be improved to achieve this goal. Therefore do we want to forward this project.

To achieve entrepreneurship cooperation between schools and enterprises is a necessary condition. Recent theory tells us that the best way to obtain empowerment and self-esteem in students is through practice and experience in cooperating with mentor companies. Through this cooperation students also get the opportunity to achieve individual career guidance.

Our project is cooperation between five European countries, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and UK. Partners are upper secondary schools, Universities, organisations, and mentor companies. Through this project the partners will cooperate in developing and trying out Guidelines for career guidance and entrepreneurship for schools, students and mentor companies. The partners will also develop a common Nomenclature. The methods of cooperating will be through partner meetings and on Web and ICT.

The Guidelines will be evaluated and valuated by supervising partners both through the project and in the end of the project. Finally the results will be disseminated locally, nationally and internationally.

Through the project the students will experience the building of networks in real life. This is an important element in career guidance. They will achieve insight in and knowledge of the opportunities for employment, and also inspiration to start their own enterprises, which will strengthen the local business life. In addition they will also get insight in education systems and in business cultures in different European countries. We will emphasise good attitudes to correct and legal way of running businesses. This can be attitudes to taxes, employer -employees relations and social security. The cooperation with mentor companies will give knowledge and insight through practice, which again will give the students higher motivation and understanding for the need of further education.

A major impact of this cooperation will also be the improved access to individual Career Guidance for the students.

In the collaboration between students and mentor companies we will emphasise environmental issues and the equal opportunities for both sexes.

An additional impact will be that students from different countries will learn to know each other s cultures, and thereby increase their understanding and tolerance, which is of importance for the future of Europe.