Partner

The Vocational Agricultural High School Group of Bistrita is an old traditional school which serves the entire county of Bistrita - Nasaud providing classes in high school (day time and evening courses), vocational school and post-diploma in several fields: agriculture, horticulture, food industry, tourism, economy and mechanic.
 

Its students, aged 14-19 years old, come mostly from the rural area of the county and also from the town. Many students cannot understand their needs and skills or they find it difficult to become aware of their professional future. 

Therefore they need a very well structured guidance done by someone who knows them, who understands their social and economic status, their competence and the opportunities of the labor market.

At the moment, the trainers can develop guidance activities in the classes of form-teaching, with the help of a guidance operator. The guidance provided to the students is not well-organized because of lack of time, knowledge, tools or experience. The form-teachers try to guide their students as well as they can in order that the students should have a better opportunity to get involved in the market and find an appropriate job.

Our school has good relationships with different companies and institutions where students can develop working skills during their apprenticeship period in various fields: Sanitary and Veterinary Public Body, hotels and restaurants, auto-service garages, hair-styling saloons, food-industry companies.

This partnership will allow everybody involved in the project (students, trainers, guidance operators) to become aware of the tools, instruments, strategies and methods that our partners use in guidance, in order to identify those peculiar aspects that could be appropriate for the students in our school.
 
Useful internet sites about guidance in Romania:

www.rauflorin.ro

Partner

The aim of the Francisc Neuman Vocational School is to assure access to education to all young people and to promote an educational offer for which there are many opportunities on the labour market. Francisc Neuman Vocational School prepares 684 students aged between 14 to 19 years. 

The trainings provided by the school can be described as follow:  

1. High-School (day-classes and evening classes): - Technological Branch

a. Technical Profile for the following qualifications (Technician in the clothes design domain and Technician in the textile industry domain)

b. Exploitation of natural resources and environment protection profile for Chemist technician for laboratory qualification

c. Services Profile for Technician for acquisition and contracts Qualification
 

2. Vocational school in the following domains: Textile and leather industry, Aesthetics and human body hygiene

The trainees of the Vocational School Francisc Neuman Arad (most of them, aprox 50%), proceed from poor families of the rural area, with low income or even jobless. The access to primary and basic high-school education in Romania is both compulsory and free of charge (up to the 10th year of education at age 16). However, even if the families are exempted to pay school taxes in the period of compulsory education, there are additional costs that low-income families cannot afford (e.g. clothes, shoes, stationery, alternative books, transport, etc.). In many cases, the poorer families cannot  afford the additional expenses of their childs education and some children suffer, and are forced to abandon the school. After the 10th year of education, the schools charge the fees for books and stationery, which further discourages lower-income families from sending their children to attend school. The children of single parents suffer emotional and behavioural problems and experience feelings of loss and anger. 
 

In the same time, the number of children whose parents work abroad is increasing, and Francisc Neuman Vocational School have also a large amount (aprox 10-15%) of pupils left home alone by their parents. Some of these students develop behavioural problems that make them easy victims of abuse or delinquency. The lack of parental care/guidance has in some cases negative effects resulting in school abandon and social problems.
 
Useful internet sites about guidance in Romania:

Partner

The Complex of Economics School is a vocational school located in the city of Czestochowa, in the south of Poland. Its students, aged between 16 and 20 years, carry out the basics of starting a business; learning about the functioning of the market; enterprises, sales, purchase, financial management; legal and tax issues, accounting, statistics and other economic related subjects.
 

Although the school is located in big city the majority of the students come from rural areas. Some of them are at risk of social exclusion due to the high rate of unemployment in the villages they live in.

The school co-operates with a number of local employers, banks, tax offices, small business, ensuring apprenticeship placements for its students. Over recent years, the school has been developing co-operation with partners from outside Poland, including the teacher exchange project and apprenticeship placements through Leonardo da Vinci programme.

The School appreciates the importance of vocational counselor's assistance employing a career guidance specialist whose main goal is to offer young people opportunities to acquire skills in active and flexible planning of their career development, acquiring knowledge and skills needed in the transition from education to the labour market, finding jobs or starting their own business.
 

The participation in the Partnership Project helps the trainers / career guidance specialist to offer better services to students, thanks to the improved knowledge and skills needed to work in the transition from education to the labour market. The project helps school youth, school leavers, some youth threatened with marginalization and social exclusion to take the right decisions in their career development and career planning.
 
Useful internet sites about guidance in Poland:

www.men.gov.pl
http://isap.sejm.gov.pl
www.reformaprogramowa.men.gov.pl

Contact person 

Jolanta Wojcikiewicz   
Tel. 0048 34 3666036
E-mail: tajm6@wp.pl

  The Project website of the Polish Partner in the Project  

   Mobile Vocational Information Centre - Silent Partner 

Project outcome

Steps to My Future - The winner in the Polish group is Ilona Ujma. 

EEEEK Katerinis is a vocational school which is preparing students with special needs aged between 14 and 22 years for the insertion in the labour market. 
The programme of the school contains units of general lessons (language, maths, etc) and laboratories of cooking, gardening, autonomous living and candle making. As the students are starting to study at EEEEK they begin the training in the laboratories area. 
By the end of the training, they are going to be qualified in the professions they were trained for.

Please, see below the list on the special needs of the students:

- menthal disability;
- physical disability;
- autism; 
- psychological, emotional and social deficit.
 

The most difficult part of their studies is the definition of the profession they can do. So, the school has to provide good guidance, with the assistance of the specified teacher of guidance. Another problem is the real insertion of the students in the Labour Market. The vocational school wants to enhance the opportunities of the students with special needs, by improving their personnel development, employability and preparation for social and labour integration (for the students who are able to be involved in real job activities).

In special needs education a different guidance is carried out. The guidance operators use different approaches with each type of user. The partnership should be a good opportunity to compare the guidance among different educational systems to understand what it is provided for people with and without special needs. All the participants should try to find out how the guidance should be better for students with and without special needs and if there should be a method to provide the equal and real guidance for all. The special needs schools should be integrated with all the others types of school, and all the students with and without disabilities should be integrated in the same team.

Useful internet sites about guidance in Greece:

- www.ekep.gr
- www.elesyp.gr
- www.mysep.gr

 Contact person

Nikolaos Papathanasiou
Tel. 00302351079532
E-mail: nikopapath@sch.gr

Project outcome

Greek winner of the contest