"The project ""Disappearing professions on the European job market"" resulted from the international partnership of organisations from Poland, Lithuania, and Germany, which are connected with vocational training of the youth. It has popularised disappearing professions and traditional crafts combined with innovative actions in order to improve the situation of young people on the job market. The project aimed to promote education and training in disappearing professions, and to popularise traditional crafts and regional culture at the international level by implanting the idea of entrepreneurship and self-employment, due to the increasing interest in products and services provided in a traditional manner. Acquiring or improving competences in terms of disappearing professions as well as reaching the craftsmen, entrepreneurs, institutions, people related to disappearing professions and interested in their promotion, development of training materials, and promoting trainings in order to broaden the circle of highly qualified craftsmen – all those activities constituted a very rich form of preventing the traditional occupations from sinking into oblivion.The project involved the participation of partnership organisations employees willing to extend and exchange their experience in terms of the project’s subject and aims, including instructors of vocational training interested in supervising training in disappearing professions in their countries. Furthermore, the trainees were the charges of the partnership organisations, learning or finishing their education in vocational schools, who may have difficulties in finding themselves on the labour market as well as those willing to increase their professional qualifications in order to enter the labour market or self-employment career more easily. Moreover, craftsmen, entrepreneurs, and vocational training institutions co-working with the partnership organisations who were interested in disappearing professions also took part in the project.Within the confines of the project, the partnership organisations managed to compare: the situation of craftsmen working in imperilled professions, disappearing professions in Poland, Lithuania, and Germany, the demand for and supply of products and services provided within those professions, and the possibilities of recognition and certification of training effects in the EU countries. Moreover, the project website was created; it contains the most important information concerning the project, its results, and an on-line data base of craftsmen and people skilled in disappearing professions in the EU countries. The data base enables various entities from the EU countries such as craftsmen, people interested in traditional crafts, potential customers, entrepreneurs, representatives of associations, and people willing to undergo training in disappearing professions to get in touch and cooperate.One of the most important project activities was the mobility of individuals during the vocational training, in which 45 charges of partnership organisations and 6 instructors of vocational training/employees of partnership organisations, took part. They underwent a two-week training in chosen disappearing professions, which was preceded by a language and cultural preparation, meetings with career counsellors, and entrepreneurship courses. The training took place on the premises of the Village of Disappearing Professions in the European Centre of Education and Upbringing OHP in Roskosz, and included following professions: weaver, smith, wheeler, baker/confectioner of traditional products.The project realisation allowed the exchange of experience and good practises concerning vocational training and activities which would make it easier for school graduates to enter the labour market, the transfer of interesting and valuable solutions between the organisations, upgrading the quality and efficiency of professional training in the field of disappearing professions as well as increasing the access to and promotion of those trainings in the EU countries. The achieved results including materials, training programmes, instructional videos, and the knowledge compendium on organisation of trainings in chosen disappearing professions are a considerable support for entities interested in organisation of trainings in disappearing professions.Carrying out the project within the international cooperation together with the produced materials allowed the EU countries interested in education in the field of disappearing professions and in adding the forgotten crafts to the vocational training curricula to share and compare ideas, solutions, and methods. Moreover, the project realisation also enabled the exchange of experience and solutions concerning finding the first job as well as promotion of enterprise amongst the young participants of vocational education at the international level. Additionally, it will contribute to the networking of craftsmen."

The project focused on planning, developing and running fictitious mini-companies by upper secondary technical school students in the Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania. The fictitious firms focused on business in tourism.Each partner school chose 8 students and 2 teachers who participated in the project. Some of the students came from a socially disadvantaged environment.The main objective was to simulate the operations of real firms in the tourism industry which allowed students to acquire basic business skills and to get acquainted with some aspects of the business world. Such activities should have raised their awareness of the entrepreneurship, their practical skills in the field of study, as well as provided knowledge applicable to real-life (e. g. to establish a business company, fill appropriate documents, to be knowledgeable in tourism, to set up a marketing strategy, to carry out PR activities, etc.).The aim of this project was also to embed gained experience, outcomes and examples of good practice into the particular school curricula and to create a long-term sustainable business system. All participating parties had to cooperate and effectuate several project activities. All schools had to contribute to these following activities. A printed and a virtual methodology manual was created during the preparation phase, which was available to the teachers and students. It was used as a guideline for all the activities in which the fictitious firms were set up and run. Each participating school created its own methodology for setting up mini-companies in a particular country (with all the dissimilarities. A multilanguage dictionary was created and updated concurrently.Each party simulated setting up and running a business (a fictitious mini-company). The simulation reproduced all the activities, processes and tasks of a real firm. Students were provided with a physical space (office/place for conducting business) where they carried out their duties. It was teamwork. Each student filled a specific position and function (a director, a secretary, an economist, a PR specialist, etc.).The following activity focused on a real local firm/company. All participating students visited existing local firms in each country so they could compare their fictitious companies with the real ones. Through this activity, the students and teachers could learn more about tourist attractions, culture and traditions of that particular country or region.Finally, there was the overall evaluation of implemented activities and comparison of a simulated and a real company. The same activities and tasks were carried out in each country. The performance of fictitious mini-companies was compared and assessed at the final meeting (in the land of the project coordinator).The assessment concentrated on some similarities and differences between these mini-companies which were seated in different countries and also the cultural differences were addressed. The feedback was continuously gathered from the students, teachers and mentors or tourism business experts, who participated in the activities in the form of visits.

Project Leader: Zespół Szkół Ekonomicznych i Ogólnokształcących nr 6 w ŁomżyProject partners: Vilnius School of Technology, Business and Agriculture, Daugavpils Tirdzniecibas profesionala vidusskola, Business partner: Perfect Project BialystokThe main goal of the project – to modernize the educational system of the project partners through the preparation, testing and promotion of innovative teaching and learning methods and techniques in vocational education, using a modern tool for assessing skills and qualifications, introducing innovative teaching methods and techniques with the use of multimedia and ICT and the development of materials for vocational education, including professional foreign language and designing of training programs in which pupils from partner schools will participate.This objective was broken down into sub-objectives / outputs that were developed by the project partners.Result 1 - developed by the Project Leader: - an innovative tool for assessing skills and professional qualifications with the use of online tools and mobile technologies.Result 2 - developed by the school from Latvia – innovative teaching method in vocational school supported by innovative multimedia and ICT technologies, focused on teaching with the use of mobile technologies (d-learning and m-learning).Result 3 - developed by Lithuanian school – innovative materials for learning general and horizontal skills, especially for marketing, ICT, multilingualism with multimedia elements, eLearning module and other teaching methods available during the project implementation.Result 4 - developed by Perfect Project – an innovative program of three training courses to increase educational mobility and collaboration with employers, tailored to the needs of students and employers; the program has been developed with the use of the tool for assessing skills and qualifications, and with the use of innovative learning methods and materials developed by project partners.Result 5 - adapted to the needs of partner schools and employers and implemented by the members of the partnership (the schools from Poland, Lithuanian and Latvia) – Strategic system: EVALUATION OF PROFESSIONAL SKILLS OF FUTURE WORKERS.Within the project, based on previous assumptions and diagnosis, innovative methods and techniques of teaching were prepared, tested, implemented with the use of the modern tool which is, adjusted to the needs of secondary school, the educational MOODLE platform, for assessment of skills and vocational qualifications, with the use of innovative methods and techniques of teaching exploiting multimedia technologies and ICT. The materials for teaching vocational subjects have been prepared, especially e-marketing (the effect of the activities of Lithuanian school) as well as the materials for learning Business English. Additionally, a system of training of professional skills has been created in the areas of ICT, business ethics and communication, that is, in the areas of “deficiency of skills and competences” stated on the basis of diagnosis which had been carried out among Polish, Latvian and Lithuanian entrepreneurs.In the stage of implementation, the system of training of professional skills and qualifications was tested by students and teachers from the cooperating schools. However, it should be highlighted that everyone interested in modern professional training, from all over the world, can use and take advantage of the training sessions developed in the project (all the materials are accessible in English). Project participants, that is students and teachers of cooperating schools, methodological advisers in teacher improvement centres, professional advisers in schools, institutions supporting educational process, local entrepreneurs and other social groups interested in modern education, will receive, apart from traditional method of teaching, the possibility to gain, enhance and consolidate knowledge and skills through mobile and distance learning, that is:•freedom to choose place, pace and time of learning,•steady access to learning materials,•diversity of material presentation,•access to selected source materials,•implementation to independent learning,•putting acquired knowledge and skills into practice,•contact with the teacher and other students,•development of language skills (speaking, listening, reading, writing), implementation to independence in the process of learning a foreign language,•sharing and exchanging knowledge between the participants of the courses,•efficient communication between the users.Additional advantages resulting from the project are as follows:•strengthening professional image of teachers – improving their competences, especially in ICT,•developing key and cross sectional skills,•increase of both national and international educational mobility,•reduction of early school leaving,•improving professional skills and competences.