Increasing numbers of students are at risk of dropping out from VET schools. Young people who leave education early lack skills and qualifications. They face a higher risk of unemployment, social exclusion and poverty. Also, the employment pattern of “a job for life” is gone due to global political, economic, social, and technological changes. The ongoing transforming nature of work, jobs and careers implies the continuous need for personal and professional development and the ability to adapt to the transformation of the workplace. Students need to acquire plenty of skills and competences, in order to be able to make career choices accurately and effectively and to meet the labour market’s demand. Students who are less knowledgeable about career most often choose a career that does not fit with their needs. The above statement is even more valid for VET students, who are very often focused mainly on acquiring a certain set of vocational competences, without paying much attention on nurturing their soft skills. Therefore it is important that all key VET stakeholders are involved in the process of improving VET students’ career management skills (CMS). Students need guidance in the course of study and training, and it is a huge responsibility for the vocational institution to provide them with relevant skills. To ensure their students’ have up to date knowledge and skills, VET teachers can no longer only teach vocational subjects without incorporating CMS within the curriculum. It is the teacher who are closer to students and have access to them on a daily basis, therefore they are in a perfect position to influence children’s choice of career as well as shape students’ attitude towards given profession. The main aim of the CARMA project is to empower teachers from partner countries and beyond to deliver career guidance and foster the development of career management skills among VET students in order to prevent early school leaving, increase motivation level, as well as employability. Our objectives: - to develop a manual for VET teachers to support VET learners in developing career management skills; - to improve VET teachers competencies in career guidance through training; - to engage VET students in pilot career guidance sessions with trained teachers;- to disseminate project results across teachers’ communities through multiplier events, online free access to the manual and an extensive dissemination;- to develop Policy recommendations targeting high level decision makers in the field of education and training. The project was a transnational cooperation of 5 institutions: oThe coordinator of the project was the Raabe Klett Kft. (HU), a publishing house and training institute in the field of education and training.oRaahe VET school (FI) provides qualified vocational upper secondary education and training at three different schools in Raahe region.oBKSZC Weiss Manfréd VET (HU) offers mainly electric electronic and IT studies.oBME University (HU): The Department of Technical Education within the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences prepares teachers for technical vocational training schools.oSelfinvest Ltd. (BG) is a private company. Their main goal is to provide high quality career guidance services to diverse target groups offering individual career consultations and group programs aiming to develop CMS among people from different ages. Our most important activities include:•3 Transnational Project meetings•Development of Manual for teachers•Testing and Piloting of Manual•Development of Policy Recommendations•Multiplier events: Workshop Sofia, Final conference Budapest•Dissemination including: promotion emails, online presence, newsletters, presentations, personal encountersResults:1. Career Management Training Manual for VET Teachers and Policy recommendations – 4 language versions (HU, FI, BG and EN)2. 10 school staff members from 2 partner schools trained in applying the manual 3. 100 students participated in pilot lessons4. 110 stakeholders from partner, other EU and non-EU countries informed of project results through 2 multipliers events in Budapest and Sofia.5. More than 5.000 individuals reached through disseminationImpact:VET teachers involved understand the importance of CMS and the role of teachers in it, have improved competencies to deliver it in the classroom and have a raised sensitivity to the prospects of students with various social background/motivation/capacities. The project created awareness among VET students who participated in the pilots of the need and importance of CMS, it improved understanding the connection of CMS with future employability, that not only professional skills are needed to establish a future career, but one has to have lots of different soft skills if they want to achieve something in life/profession.Longer term impact are expected in raising the quality and relevance of VET and employability of young people.

The Covid-19 crisis is leading to a global economic depression with a pronounced negative effect on the lives of young people in terms of employment, education and mental wellbeing. Even before that, they were already facing a challenging transition into the labour market and were 2 to 3 times more likely than adults to be un- or underemployed. Now, with the tremendously challenging socio-economic situation created by Covid-19 and the changing world of work, young people’s career chances become insecure and vague. Research shows several factors beneficial for young people’s employability and empowerment in such situations and an essential one is development of skills for work. A significant part of the latter is formed by entrepreneurial attributes, leadership skills, creativity and readiness to innovate, resilience and cultural intelligence – all at the focus of this project not only due to the research evidence of their positive impact on youth employability but also due to their importance at times of crisis and economic recession. Therefore, our main objectives include: (1) to nurture young people’s creativity, resilience and entrepreneurialism, (2) to support their communication and leadership skills, (3) to develop their cultural intelligence and understanding of diversity issues; all of these aiming at increasing youth’s adaptability in highly unpredictable situations, improving their employability and encouraging their entrepreneurial behaviour in a post-Covid world.Our main target group is generation Z (young people, born from late 90s to 2010, who are starting to enter the workplace) and we aim at designing and delivering a training intervention to up to 100 such individuals from all over Europe since research shows that this population is more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, depression and anxiety, which can prevent them from success at work; they also lack optimism, which leads to poorer chances of achievement, and are impatient, so not keen to continuously focus on certain projects, have a hard time hearing negative feedback and, therefore, lack resilience. To support young people to overcome these barriers to career success, we will design an evidence-based training model and deliver an innovative, stimulating and engaging course (comprising four 8-hour long online sessions), incorporating expertise from the realm of business psychology, career coaching, social work, cultural awareness and creative industries. This will help us foster an inclusive and empowering learning environment for young people, where they can acquire and develop the core skills needed for employability in the post-Covid labour market.We will achieve the above goals by using sound pedagogical methods and innovative approaches, engaging participants’ body and mind. We will apply pedagogical techniques with proven effectiveness in the context of generation Z education such as use of ICT, practical activities, experiential learning and tapping into learners’ previous experience, acknowledging their wisdom and turning them into co-creators of knowledge. A special role in this process will be ascribed to the creative aspect of our training, where acting out emotions, role playing, use of poetry, dancing and expressive arts will serve as effective tools to address the psychosocial problems of our young participants and help them acquire skills and knowledge to overcome them in a psychologically safe environment. Not only is this approach appealing to generation Z and pedagogically effective, but it is also a way to foster creativity and teach the skill of resilient and imaginative responding to rapidly changing external stimuli.As a result, we expect to help our young audience to understand the many ways they can thrive in labile and stressful situations such as the one created by Covid-19. This is expected to be beneficial to their mental wellbeing and have a significant positive impact on their employability and entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions. As for our stakeholders, we will raise their awareness of the characteristics and psychosocial needs of generation Z, especially in a post-Covid world. We will provide them with free access to detailed instructional material that they can apply in their work and youth training to support today’s young people’s career development, job hunting and entrepreneurship. A special emphasis will be put on cultural intelligence and awareness of discrimination issues based on gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability and other reasons and these will also be linked to the matter of youngsters’ psychosocial adaptation under highly unpredictable and rapidly changing circumstances such as those imposed by the pandemic. We expect all these activities to contribute to the sustainable development of local communities and have a positive impact on the local employment rates (incentivizing the local creative industry too) and improve social inclusion of generation Z.