Tavoite

Smart Practice – Empowering Entrepreneurial Skills in Higher Education on Erasmus + projekti, jonka tavoitteena on kehittää käytänteitä, joilla vahvistetaan korkea-asteen opiskelijoiden yrittäjyysvalmiuksia harjoittelujakson aikana. Kohderyhmät koostuvat korkea-asteen opiskelijoista, opetushenkilökunnasta ja yritysten edustajista. 

Entire EU is in transition and the need for new types of enterprises and competent knowledge-workers and graduates is more important than ever. On the way to Innovation economy, even traditional businesses and SMEs engage in developing more innovative products and services, thus future jobs require employees with high-level qualifications. As it is said in Communication on Reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe (2013) the current economic environment Europe needs to make sure that its entire young people acquire the skills that help them enter the job market – thus have features of entrepreneurs, have the right mind-set for entrepreneurship and innovations.  It is stressed that Europe needs a flexible workforce that can respond to increased competition and rapid technological change. The findings of the research carried out by the Social Information and Training Agency and Education Exchanges Support Foundation (2010) show that although employers are satisfied with the knowledge level of graduates, the lack of ability to apply the acquired knowledge in practice causes considerable problems in finding and maintaining workplace. In this regard, there is an increasing need for the measures and approaches that encourage students’ practical entrepreneurial skills development.

Despite the fact that employers emphasize student internships as especially constructive forms of cooperation with higher education institutions, a number of management and educational problems occur. According to the mentioned research findings, for example, there is a lack of consistent system of internship organization and implementation; students do not receive sufficient consultation or support from the host-companies; mentors are usually not trained to teach, supervise and evaluate the students; universities prioritize theoretical rather than practical preparation of the students. In this way, university students acquire less practical skills of their profession in comparison to, for example, non-university students.

The main project target group is university students. Project through the real problem-solving scenarios and activities is targeted to develop university students’ practical skills and know-how, strengthen their entrepreneurial mindsets and competences which are relevant for successful functioning in the labour market. The second target group of the project is university academic staff and business representatives. Innovative approach to internship that will be elaborated and piloted during the project will not only strengthen university and business cooperation links, but also contribute to developing educators’ professional profile (in relation

to entrepreneurship skills), tutoring and mentoring skills of university academic staff as well as those of business representatives.

The implementation of project is based on international cooperation and experience. The main causes for this are that institutions as well as countries can learn from each other and put their expertise to foster applying innovative approaches to students’ practical learning.

Tulokset

Analysis of good practices on innovative approaches to internship in HE

Methodology of smart practice

Handbook on smart practice results

Workshops and conference:

Workshop in Cyprus (30 persons, 10/2016)

Workshop in Finland (30 persons, 10/2016)

Workshop in Italy (30 persons, 10/2016)

Workshop in Lithuania (30 persons, 10/2016)

International conference in Lithuania (100 persons 06/2017)