Partners

ITALY

Istituto d’ Istruzione Superiore Sandro Pertini is a secondary school. It is a technical and vocational school for Business and Chemistry but it also offers vocational courses for mechanics and agriculture. There are about 700 students and about 100 teachers and other staff in the school. IIS Sandro Pertini is located in Alatri, a beautiful historical town in central Italy near the Appennini mountains with about 30000 inhabitants. The area is characterized by a high unemployment rate, especially among young people (about 30%, according to http://ottomilacensus.istat.it/sottotema/060/060003/12) even if it has many potentialities for improvement in many sectors like the touristic one and the agricultural one.

Our students are aged 14 to 19, many of them come from a cultural and economic deprived background. Because of the recent economic crisis many of our students live in single salaryfamilies. School is often the only subject playing a role in the cultural and social growth of these young people. The pupils often have a very narrow perception of the world beyond national borders, and their understanding of the European dimension and the culture and societies of our European partners and the importance of learning modern foreign languages for job market is limited. A surprisingly large number have not travelled to the nearby big cities never mind to a European destination. This is due to financial considerations together with a fear of the unknown. Moreover, the early school leaving rate is quite high because of disillusionment with the educational system or poor grades.

In order to prevent school dropout and to increase school attendance, the school has been equipped with any kinds of technological facilities and devices, such as multimedia labs, computers, interactive whiteboards, and so on. We work for inclusion and offer a wide range of experiences to disabled students, the one with different levels of learning disabilities and also the migrant ones, who learn how to integrate in our school and society in our inclusive workshops (theatre, orchard, manufacturing, drawing, computer, language …). Our inclusion department works very hard to give each student the same possibilities of social, cultural and personal development., to fight discrimination and social exclusion of all diversities.

IIS Pertini is the leader of a network of schools in the North of the province of Frosinone for staff training and technical and vocational training for students. Our mission is based on tradition and innovation. We strongly believe in the social and cultural function of the school as an intermediary between students and the territory. We constantly look for new methodologies to teach our students the key competences they will need when approaching the world of work. Besides, we also look forward a cultural and social growth of our students which we want to become active European citizens. The school offers different services to our students, in particular we offer training possibilities during the last three years of school and support our students for a real work placement after they finish school. We have a work placement agency active in the institute since 2014. The project of opening the school doors to Europe is very complex and global and it can be seen as a whole-school approach. A cross-sectoral approach and strong cooperation with a wide range of partners and the community at large is necessary to deal with issues which schools do not (and cannot) have the relevant expertise for. The whole-school approach is beneficial to all learners, not only to those at risk of underachievement or dropout. It can improve the motivation, engagement and social inclusion of all learners.

GREECE

IEK Kavalas is a public Vocational training center, post graduate, after secondary level and has been designed based on the counterpart of European countries so to fill the gap between Secondary and Higher Education. IEK’s graduates are of specialized European standards, with diplomas equivalent to those of the corresponding European countries. Young professionals, equipped with both theoretical and practical knowledge, are capable of integrating dynamically into the employment system.

IEK Kavalas has been operating for 27 years, is the largest IEK in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace and the third largest in Greece has 26 departments, employs 116 teachers and been attended by 614 students. Age of students 16+ but the majority of them is under 22 years old.

Our institution provides educational opportunities to people who intend to expand their knowledge or skills on the profession of their interest and to receive a certificate that will support them in finding the appropriate work position.

  • We offer them educational opportunities which will help them in adjusting to the technological, economic, social and cultural developments.
  • We offer also opportunities which would help to obtain vocations according to the employment policies parallel to economic development, through our educational programs.
  • We undertake tasks connected with education and bringing up of our students with fewer opportunities and smaller chances of successful living.

We have several departments as:

  • Agriculture, Food Technology & Nutrition
  • Cooking art (Chefs)
  • Viticulture (grape-growing) & Oenology (science of making wine)
  • Health & Care
  • Air transportation and Aviation
  • Environment & Constructions
  • Tourism
  • Nursing
  • Cinema & Theatre
  • Sport coaches
  •  Technicians of Medicines
  • Ergotherapy
  • Physiotherapy

The lessons are both theoretical and practical. Our students are learning whatever they need to know about the profession they have chosen so as to create better conditions for transition to working life. In our institution there are available five fully equipped computer laboratories and additionally computers in every laboratory to facilitate the educational procedure and practice. In most lessons the utilizing of ICTs is being involved. Plus, in most of the departments’ curriculum courses about environmental protection are provided.

Our institute is situated in a beautiful town of Kavala in North Greece which is near the sea. In addition, a big proportion of our students are migrants, live in remote villages of the region under the danger of exclusion and of being considered second – class students. Some of our students are economy immigrants from Albania, Georgia, Bulgaria and Russia.

Lately ships full of refugees from Syria leave hundreds of them in the port of the city in order to find a proper way to continue their lives, more than a thousand of them live at the refugees’ camp just a few meters away from the school and some of them attend lessons at Greek schools. Furthermore, many of our students have a low family income, are from ruralareas.

LITHUANIA

Panevėžys vocational training center is one of the biggest vocational training schools in North and East Lithuania. The students can study profession together with or without secondary education, or attend secondary school classes at 9th and 10th grades without getting a profession. The school also implements adults’ continuous vocational training. There are about 1000 pupils studying at the center and a wide spectrum of professions taught in several locations. VET center offers these programmes in Panevėžys (between two locations):

  • Decorator (builder)
  • Car electrical equipment repairer
  • Car mechanic
  • Ornamental planting and landscaping business employee
  • Electrician
  • Aesthetician
  • Hairdresser
  • Computer equipment specialist
  • Masseur
  • Joiner
  • Welder
  • Equipment maintenance employee.

The most popular professions in Panevėžys units are builders‘, bricklayers‘– concrete workers‘, automotive mechanics‘, hairdressers‘, beauty specialists‘. Joniskelis Ignas Karpis Agricultural department (before reorganization in September 2019 it used to be a separate vocational school, having over 200 years of history as an agricultural school) is in the northern part of Lithuania, Pasvalys district. Pasvalys district is one of the most domesticated with developed agriculture and forestry regions of Lithuania.

We also have students in these programs at Joniškėlis department:

  • Agricultural production business employee
  • Maintenance of green plantations manager (for students with special needs)
  • Equipment maintenance employee
  • Accounting clerk-cashier.

There are about 200 students at this department and the majority of them study agricultural production business employee and equipment maintenance employee professions.

ROMANIA

Valea lui Mihai city is located in the NW of Bihor County,in the area of Ierului Valley, with about 80% of the territory occupied by agricultural land suitable for grain crops, horticulture and viticulture. Colegiul Agricol Nr. 1 Valea lui Mihai is an educational institution with prestige and tradition, which is headquartered in Valea lui Mihai. It aims to provide community education and training opportunities of high quality European standards. The educational activity of school aims to form a competent, autonomous, responsible graduate, able to decide on his own career and become a citizen actively involved in sustainable development of society. Although the school is located in the urban, school population comes the most part from rural areas, Valea lui Mihai being a center of influence for the development of communes in Ierului Valley.

The school educational offer is in accordance with the region’s economic development trends since for local residents agriculture is the main source of income. Therefore, the school prepares every year an estimated 650 students, especially in agriculture. In the school year 2019-2020 the institution works with a total of 25 classes, 541 students including 19 technological profile, with the following specializations agronomist engineer, mechanical maintenance and repair technician, technician in commerce activities and professional classes with the following qualifications: agricultural mechanic, horticulturist, merchant seller, cook, waiter.

PORTUGAL

Agrupamento de Escolas Padre Benjamim Salgado (AEPBS) is situated in Joane, a small town which is expanding strongly and benefits from a good geographical location. The AEPBS is a cluster of a secondary school and a group of pre-schools and primary schools. It has around 2700 students.

There are also several vocational courses, including multimedia and computer programming. Socioeconomically, the community of students is quite diverse, but some students’ background is not well structured, and some of them face lack of resources. Thus, it is a school’s concern to provide them a good educational platform upon which they can gain skills to fulfill their goals for life. The school is widely recognized for its successful results. It’s also our goal to develop teaching and learning methods, making lessons more attractive, and making the curriculum more flexible and adapted to the students’ own reality. Lessons’ content will then be increasingly more real and authentic, connected to digital knowledge and skills. We will thus develop literacy in general, but also digital literacy, preparing our pupils to the demands of XXI century. It’s also an important goal to develop the school’s internationalization, by sharing experience and expertise with foreign schools.

 

FINLAND

The Brahe Education Centre is a multisectorial educational organisation owned by municipalities of Raahe, Pyhäjoki and Siikajoki. It organizes Upper Secondary Vocational Education of 180 competence points and adult education. The amount of personnel is 120 persons and total amount of students is about 1500. At the Brahe Education there are 3 different branches of vocational training: Technics, Agriculture, Crafts and Design and Arts.

The Brahe Education Centre is powerful regional actor in Pohjois-Pohjanmaa region and internationally known partner. The Brahe Education Centre co-operates closely with towns, organisations of entrepreneurs and trade unions in education and training. The Brahe Education Centre communicates closely through councils with firms, associations and organisations of labour market. The Brahe Education Centre co-operates with the other education institutes in Finland and with the Finnish National Board of Education.