Implementing Entrepreneurship – Education into the initial vocational education of youth in Bulgaria 2007 - 2009
Summary
The Rotary Foundation Matching Grants projects “Young Entrepreneur” supplies the right help in the right place at the right time.
At the moment a reform of the initial vocational education of the youth takes place in Bulgaria, a procedure which will be completed 2009. Entrepreneurship Education shall be implemented as compulsory subject as well as teaching method in the new curricula.
The experiences made within the Rotary Foundation Matching Grants project “Young Entrepreneur” being in process will be the nucleus of this development. The new curricula will be worked out using the experiences based on teachers’ and students’ training, the pilot schools will serve as future model centers and their teachers as multipliers to disseminate the new ways of vocational education all over Bulgaria.
The project resumes the Austrian educational projects since 1993 as well as the Rotarian educational co-operations in Bulgaria which have been carried out since 1994. Among other things
· Bulgarian teachers were qualified to train their colleagues within in-service trainings,
· five model centers at higher secondary commercial colleges were established to disseminate new knowledge and new skills and
· state of the art textbooks for commercial lessons were edited.
Meanwhile the Rotary Foundation Matching Grants project “Young Entrepreneur” is seen in Bulgaria as well as in Austria as unique and as exemplary:
· protection of honor by Excellence Mag. Radi Naidenov, Bulgarian Ambassador in Austria,
· co-operation of private and public institutions,
· execution alongside guidelines worked out in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science, Sofia,
· agreement with the Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture, Vienna,
· active participation of staff members of the Department of Policy in Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Science, Sofia,
· dimension of the project
Ø in-service training of about 100 teachers of 41 pilot schools,
Ø teaching of about 2.000 students of the respective pilot schools,
Ø attendant measures as editing an Entrepreneurship Education handbook, a savings book of innovations, implementing e-learning tools,
Ø establishing an Entrepreneurship Education Center, Centers for Applied Economics,
Ø youth camp for Austrian students in Montana, Bulgaria,
· budget about € 180.000,--,
· financial support not only from Rotary International but also from both ministries,
· use of the above mentioned pedagogical structures and textbooks,
· links to other educational projects and last but not least
· sustainability of Entrepreneurship Education within the initial vocational education of the youth in Bulgaria.
Without doubt the Rotary Foundation Matching Grants project “Young Entrepreneur” is the most ambitious educational project of the Rotary Club Kitzbühel and its partners in Bulgaria since 1994.
