Getting school drop outs back on track in the Midi-Pyrénées region
The project ‘Schools for a second Change’ (ER2C) in the Languedoc – Rousillon region aims to stimulate young people to peruse professional careers by offering vocational training. Approximately 5000 people leave the school system each year without a professional diploma in the region, which accounts for 6% of the students leaving high school. This could result in lack of job qualifications and thus can be seen as a process leading to social exclusion. In order to retain these youngsters in society the schools provide personal guidance, refresher courses and work integration programmes.
Providing tailor-made teaching methods according to the profile of each student
At the moment there are 9 ER2C schools in the region giving individual attention to each student. The ERC2 project supports youngsters from 18 to 15 years old who have not attended a school for at least 6 months and are registered with an employment centre. Specific individual learning and multidisciplinary programmes have been set up to meet the needs and ambitions of each specific student. The overall objective is to create a sense of social and professional inclusion by providing innovative and tailor-made teaching methods. Overall, the ER2C schools aim to reach the following objectives:
- develop or update basic knowledge and skills to enable students to be able to join a company;
- develop their social and behavioural skills so that they can become fully functioning citizens;
- provide them with customised coaching to help increase their self-motivation; and
- help develop professional goals, in part through apprenticeships.
Important milestone: 1000th student signs up for ER2C
Since the establishment of the schools in 2003, already 1000 students attend the courses. Additionally 3 out of 4 students finds a job within 9 months after completing their study. The ER2C schools have built up partnerships with 1500 enterprises and a regional ERDF partnership has been renewed as part of the ERDF enterprise investments.
Resources used
The total budget for the project accumulates €3,000,000 of which 1,500,000 is co- funded by the European Social Fund for the 2007 to 2013 programming period.
Document type
Practice