Good Practice - Project
Youth and Entrepreneurship training programme in Estonia
Estonian and Spanish Local Action Groups, together with educational institutions and local entrepreneurs introduced rural entrepreneurship to Estonian secondary school students.
General information
RDP Priority
- P6. Social inclusion and local development
RDP Focus Area
- 6B: Local development
RDP Measure
- M19: LEADER/CLLD
Summary
‘Youth and Entrepreneurship’ is a transnational cooperation project between Estonia and Spain, which promotes entrepreneurship among secondary school students in Estonia’s Peipsi-Alutaguse Chamber of Cooperation (PAK) LAG region. The emphasis of the project was on the long-term promotion of rural entrepreneurship, spreading entrepreneurial culture in schools and developing entrepreneurial competences such as teamwork and communication skills. The project’s central activity was the delivery of an entrepreneurship education programme to two cohorts of secondary school students across two consecutive academic years.
Results
12 educational workers increased their ability to deliver entrepreneurship education to secondary school students. 150 students of the region developed their entrepreneurial knowledge, improved their cooperation skills, and gained an understanding of the kinds of resources that are available for entrepreneurship in the region.
Promoter
LAG Peipsi - Alutaguse Chamber of Cooperation & LAG Consorci Grup d'Acció Local Noguera (CGN)
Funding
Total budget - 66 000 (EUR)
EAFRD - 47 520 (EUR)
National/Regional - 11 880 (EUR)
Private - 6 600 (EUR)
Ressources
Documents
Youth and Entrepreneurship training programme in Estonia
(PDF – 1.62 Mo)
Liens
Context
The territory managed by the Peipsi-Alutaguse Chamber of Cooperation Local Action Group (LAG) is affected by population decline. As of 2015, the number of inhabitants had decreased by 9.3 % over 10 years, and the area is now below the Estonian average in terms of demographic sustainability. In 2012, an average of only 18 companies per 1 000 inhabitants were economically active in the region, compared to the national average of 48. The region has great tourism potential due to its natural beauty. This remains largely unexploited due to a lack of services, accommodation and catering in particular.
Major challenges for the region therefore include development of micro-enterprises, adding value to existing businesses, and developing tourist services. However, the decline and ageing of the population, along with a lack of modern infrastructure has a negative impact on the region's most important prerequisite for development - human resources.
Objectives
The aim of this LEADER trans-national cooperation project was to develop the entrepreneurial skills of local young people and thereby, in the long term, create the conditions for them to live and work in the region.
Activities
Project activities included:
- Agreement between the Peipsi-Alutaguse Chamber of Cooperation LAG (Estonia) and the Spanish Consorci Grup d'Acció Local Noguera (CGN) LAG, which had carried out a similar entrepreneurship education project.
- Cooperation agreements with six schools in the region, where project and the programme of activities were introduced.
- Adapting and translating educational materials from the Spanish project (teachers' books and workbooks for students) to the needs of the Estonian context and the region.
- Creating a website (http://fer.pakmty.ee/)
- Running an entrepreneurship training seminar for 12 local secondary school teachers. Teachers who had previously participated in the Spanish project gave an overview of what had been achieved there. Each school was paired with a partner school for project delivery (such as organising video calls between students to present their hometowns and share experiences).
- Delivering curriculum-aligned entrepreneurship education for secondary school students. This involved one hour per week of themed learning activities (economic education, meetings with entrepreneurs, ideas generation, team building).
- Organising knowledge sharing and support seminars for participating teachers.
- Organising joint excursions for the Estonian students - to local enterprises and to each other’s schools and local areas - as well as online meetings between Estonian and Spanish schools.
- Hosting a summer camp where students developed their teamwork skills and shared the knowledge gained during the project.
- Organising the final entrepreneurship seminar for the local teachers.
Main results
12 educational workers increased their ability to deliver entrepreneurship education to secondary school students. 150 students developed their entrepreneurial knowledge, improved their cooperation skills, and gained an understanding of the resources that are available to support entrepreneurship in the region.
An Estonian-language entrepreneurship education workbook and teacher's book were published, and can now be used by other interested parties.
The cooperation skills of the participating teachers and students improved through the experience of local and international collaboration. The project hopes to make a long-term impact, beginning when the participating students enter the labour market in around seven to eight years.
Key lessons
The key lesson for success was building real international cooperation into project level activities. In this way approaches to common, though not identical challenges facing a rural area in another country (Spain) were successfully adapted and actioned in the Estonian context.