Wake up Your Vocation

We find deficiencies in the relationship between the education system and the labour market: - Transmission of erroneous beliefs about what the labour market currently values (OECD Enhancing Emplo...

WAKEUP project focuses on reducing the gap between the Formal Education System and the labour market by providing students with the necessary preparation in terms of employability skills and labour market orientation, involving both companies and schools in this process. This will be achieved through the following specific objectives: SO1. To understand the vision and expectations of 12-18 year olds, their parents/guardians and teachers about the professional future and labour market inclusion possibilities of young people. SO2. To develop teachers' knowledge and skills on an innovative methodology in career guidance to help students design their academic and training itinerary according to their competences and skills. SO3. Raise awareness among students and their families about the reality of the labour market in European countries, the new skills and competences demanded in various digitised sectors relevant to sustainability and the academic or vocational training pathways available to achieve them. SO4. Bring students and the private sector closer together to generate a better understanding and connection of their realities, especially in rural areas, where there is a severe lack of social capital and career information.

The project will deliver three main results: 1. Study on visions and expectations. This result focuses on understanding the demand side of the project. It will consist of a deep analysis through surveys and interviews to identify the vision and expectations of the young students, their parents /guardians, and teachers, regarding their professional future in a continuously evolving labour market. The target groups in this result are: - Students: focusing on their expectations and vision of their future. - Parents/guardians: They do have a significant influence in the students' decisions, mainly in the younger ones - Teachers: They are the main tool to inform young students during their academic pathway. The impact of the study is twofold. It will help the WAKEUP participants in the definition of the methodology to be developed, adapting it to the actual worries, expectations and possibilities of teachers, parents and students. Also, as it will be made freely available, other organizations will make use of it, to develop their own procedures, or to include new visions in the study to make it more complete and usable all along the EU. 2. Methodological guide for teacher training. This result focuses on the creation, test and validation of a methodology that can be put into practice in each partner's country. Other projects have addressed the guidance of students towards the labour market. The innovative character of this result stays in: - The developed methodology is not addressed to students, but to the teachers. This means that the guidance capacity and knowledge stays in the education centres as an added value, long after the guided students have left. - The guidance is not focused on any specific profession or skill. General and transversal skills or attitudes will be analysed and encouraged. The methodology will try to guide the students not only in the type of work they can do, but also in the kind of workers they want to be. - Young future workers are considered an active part of the community. The way they approach and develop their profession will contribute to defining our society in the incoming decades. A cascade impact is expected in this result. Impact on three different stakeholders: a. Students (Youth): Dynamic and attractive work methodologies in the classroom, capable of generating interest. b. Teachers: Support to incorporate new ways of working that capture the attention of students. Training on work by competences and its subsequent evaluation. Information on changes in the labour market and the expectations of companies for selection and hiring. c. Companies and hiring organisations: Hire professionals who respond to your demands and the new requirements of the labour market, in order to guarantee the best performance possible 3. Policy recommendations. During the implementation of the WAKEUP project activities, each project partner will operate in a specific legal, political, systemic and structural environment. Such diverse experiences will provide important information on factors that hinder or, on the contrary, empower young people’s informed transition to a new world of work. Collecting this information at different levels and stages of implementation across all partner countries will be key to jointly developing recommendations on how to create most favourable conditions and systemic improvements. In a second stage, these recommendations will be shared with policy makers, practitioners and other relevant stakeholders. The Policy Recommendations will support our efforts to increase political awareness of the need for enhanced career orientation in times of constant labour market evolution. It will improve implementation and increase the impact of the WAKEUP Project outputs in various contexts and the political and administrative support as well as practitioners’ interest to implement the WAKEUP Project and other career orientation initiatives in various schools and countries.