An increase in unemployment and loss of work has been one of the major impacts of COVID19 on young people. As of August 2021, 2.833 million young people under 25 in the EU were unemployed (Eurostat 2021). Since the onset of the pandemic, it is estimated the youth unemployment rate in the EU has risen from 14.9% to 17.1%1 (Eurostat 2021). Youth unemployment in the rest of European continent is no better. Globally, the ILO (2021) estimates that by January 2021, young people (15–25) had experienced an employment loss of 8.7%, compared to only 3.7% for adults.
However, the longer the crisis lasts, the greater the risk of unemployment taking root and creating difficult times for the millions of young people aged 15 to 19 currently enrolled in secondary schools, who will enter the labour market in the coming years. Thus the crisis has the potential to create a "lockdown generation" and worsen the job opportunities of new entrants. Hence, the generation of young people who will enter the labour market does so after the worst economic crisis in over half a century, which has affected young people disproportionately. That is why it is necessary for the next generation of workers not only to be able to find suitable jobs, but also to create them.
Following, non-formal entrepreneurship education for young people starting already from secondary school is needed. Entrepreneurship education is usually not included in many secondary school curricula and having a formal course in Entrepreneurship will not appeal to young people at such a young age; from the other side non-formal entrepreneurship education program would strengthen the capacity of young people to enter into entrepreneurial activity, impact positively their entrepreneurial motivation and contribute to improvement of business environment and development of youth entrepreneurship. Not to mention, that established companies seek to hire employees with an entrepreneurial mindset to drive innovation, relevancy and competitive advantage at these organizations - often called intrapreneurship.
Based on these premises, NGOE will aim to develop entrepreneurial skills among young people aged 15-19, currently enrolled in secondary schools. To this end, the consortium of partners will develop an innovative non-formal entrepreneurial pedagogical program using digital tools. Hence, NGOE will:
- Foster entrepreneurial initiatives among young people by developing their entrepreneurial skills through an innovative non-formal pedagogical methodology;
- Develop entrepreneurial skills using new ICT tools: development of new learning methods and integration of digital technologies in learning and teaching;
- Develop the necessary tools based on a human-centred design approach, taking into account the needs, desires, limitations and environment of the individual.
The direct target groups of NGOE will be young people* aged 15-19 enrolled in secondary schools, who have all the potential to become entrepreneurs and just need education to learn 2 how; and secondly, youth workers, who need to integrate new skills and tools into their entrepreneurship teaching to support young people at a younger age before they finish their studies and so contribute to their decision to become entrepreneurs.
*In the entire project, when we refer to "young people", we refer to young people aged 15- 19 enrolled in secondary schools.
Here is banner pdf for download.
Funded by the European Union.
