The BELONGtoEU project was created to address one of the most significant challenges in the European educational context: the perceived distance of students and teachers from the European Union, its institutions, values, and opportunities. This distance results in low democratic participation, growing Euroscepticism, and increased vulnerability of young people to the influence of populism and nationalism.
The initiative aims to bridge this gap by strengthening the sense of belonging to the EU among students and teachers in vocational education and training (VET), through the systematic integration of European studies content and methodologies into curricula.
Objectives
The overall objective is to reduce the perceived distance from the EU among the direct beneficiaries. The specific objectives are to:
- Enhance VET teachers’ competences in European matters through dedicated training, job shadowing, mobility activities, and co-teaching;
- Develop a multilingual e-Toolkit including teaching units, training modules, and digital resources, accessible to both partner and non-partner schools;
- Foster transnational cooperation and the creation of a sustainable network of schools, universities, and stakeholders committed to promoting European citizenship;
- Ensure the long-term integration of European content into school curricula, capitalising on previous experiences such as the Europeans of Tomorrow (EoT) project.
BELONGtoEU is therefore not only an educational project, but a strategic investment aimed at strengthening European identity, civic participation, and the quality of vocational education, by creating a model that can be replicated across Europe.
The partnership is composed of APRO Formazione as coordinator, together with the University of Eastern Piedmont (Italy), ASUC Boro Petrushevski (North Macedonia), Galway Technical Institute (Ireland), Pärnumaa Kutsehariduskeskus (Estonia), and CEBANC (Spain).
