Programme: Erasmus+
Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices
Action Type: Strategic Partnerships for adult education
Project Identifier: 2020-1-NL01-KA204-064748
Project Title: “Entrepreneurship education for seniors and adults with fewer opportunities”
Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning
Results Platform Project Card: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2020-1-NL01-KA204-064748
Coordinating organisation and country: Stichting MasterPeace, NL
Participating Countries: NL, HR, RS, SE, DE
Funded by: the Nationaal Agentschap Erasmus+ Onderwijs & Training, the Netherlands National Agency for the Erasmus+ programme.
Project duration: 01/11/2020 – 30/09/2022
Project summary:
The motivation for this project was to equip seniors and adults with fewer opportunities with a set of skills needed for personal development in the areas of entrepreneurial intelligence and creating (self-)employment opportunities, proactively in today’s reality of employment insecurity and the world of extinction of many familiar jobs and occupations now and even more so in the future. This new needed capacity was entrepreneurial intelligence – a competence trained and developed through the acquisition of various skills, knowledge and attitudes through quality non-formal adult education. After analysing the results, we had identified the following needs and problems in our communities:
- The difficulty to find quality permanent employment for adults and seniors with fewer opportunities;
- The difficulty to open new businesses as most of the new businesses started in our communities are not innovative and therefore do not generate sufficient profit or even close quite soon;
- Not enough opportunities for our beneficiaries to develop their entrepreneurial intelligence and thus their personal, social and cognitive skills, especially those of innovation and creativity in entrepreneurship;
- Inadequate and inaccessible educational opportunities, either online or offline, for developing entrepreneurial intelligence and related creativity in entrepreneurship:
- Only 7 out of 42 adult educators (17%) had previous experience with enterprises and use this experience and expertise in their non-formal adult education for employability and entrepreneurship of adults (and seniors) with fewer opportunities;
- Only 4 out of 42 (9%) adult educators working with beneficiaries in NF adult education have received any kind of training on the intrapersonal aspect of entrepreneurial intelligence and feel confident in organising educational activities on this topic.
With this project, our beneficiaries were able to improve their entrepreneurial intelligence and attitude. We also empowered more adult educators to organise innovative and up-to-date entrepreneurial learning activities within non-formal adult education.
Objectives were:
- To empower seniors and adults with fewer opportunities in entrepreneurial intelligence and mind-set development (including intrapersonal and interpersonal social-emotional and creativity competences), through development of inspiring, innovative and up-to-date handbook and e-learning courses.
- To empower our adult educators and improve knowledge management of adult education institutions and organisations in theory and practice for building competences of adult educators in entrepreneurial mind-set and creativity in entrepreneurship development of citizens, through training courses, innovative Guidebook with curriculum and e-learning courses for adult educators’ training.
- To exchange good practices and further develop quality strategic partnership among partners from 5 European countries with different realities in regards to citizens’ self-employment and entrepreneurship.
The project proved to be needed/innovative in our communities, also thanks to the transnational contribution of partners from different European countries with their different approaches on motivating target groups. All partners had good practices to showcase and we learned from each other but also disseminated the learned outcomes to others back home and promoted the different practices of entrepreneurship education in adult learning programmes.
Implementation:
A1 Project Management
M1 Kick-off meeting
O1 Handbook on Entrepreneurial learning, Intelligence and mind-set development for adults
M2 Second meeting
O2 Guidebook with Curriculum: Empowering adult educators for Entrepreneurial learning, Intelligence and mind-set development among seniors and adults with fewer opportunities
M3 Third meeting
O3 E-learning course for educators: Entrepreneurial learning, Intelligence and mind-set development education for seniors and adults with fewer opportunities
O4 E-learning course for beneficiaries: IntRApersonal aspect of Entrepreneurial mind-set development
O5 E-learning course for beneficiaries: Leadership, Teamwork and other intERpersonal skills within Entrepreneurial mind-set development
C1 LTTA Training of trainers
E1, E2, E3, E4, E5 – Open conferences in RS, HR, SE, DE, NL
M4 – Evaluation meeting
Project directly impacted organisational capacities to work on providing quality entrepreneurship education to mainly seniors and adults with fewer opportunities. The project positively impacted partner organisations, as they increased their capacity and competences for providing quality adult education activities for entrepreneurial learning based on innovative approach.
With all intellectual outputs, we influenced the change and improvement of existing entrepreneurship adult NFE methodologies and programmes, at first among partner organisations of the project, and later among partner of ours and their wider network of collaborators.
*Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.