Description
COSI.ed will upscale the proven good practice from Erasmus+ project ‘Marginalisation and Co-created Education (MaCE)’ in five different countries and educational contexts representing southern (Portugal and Spain), eastern (Poland) and northern Europe (Norway and Denmark).
The model builds on the understanding that educational staff and the students co-create as part of a community of practice. Here experts (educators) and beginners (students) work side by side, learning together and developing knowledge and competence. By using the embedded methodology, the Indirect Approach (IA) and Equality Literacy (EQL), the co-creating process entails communication giving voice to vulnerable students to understand their story (IA), and through this identify aspects of the young disadvantaged students’ situation that hinder their further learning (EQL). The young people learn about themselves, how to excel, while the educational staff develop skills and understanding to socially include the young people. The initial hypothesis is that co-created education and training in which disadvantaged learners, educational staff, stakeholders and policymakers take part will contribute to the educational and social inclusion of those groups that are usually marginalised.
The expectation is that the upscaling of the COSI.ed model to policy level will empower groups of disadvantaged young people in all over Europe, radically increasing their educational success and completion rates; at the same time, it will give European educational staff the knowledge and skills they need to socially include vulnerable young people.
Beneficiaries
This project is carried out in 5 countries and involves universities, third sector organisations, and training centres with a total of 11 partners. The beneficiaries differ depending on each country:
Norway: the beneficiaries are students aged 17-35 attending the Vocational Kragerø Upper Secondary School. The strand the students attend is for vocational programmes of study with technology and industrial subjects. The attending students usually have very low marks when entering, more than other vocational schools. Usually most of them are male, and some of them are first-generation immigrants.
Denmark: the beneficiaries are FGU NORDVEST students, aged 15-25. They are young people who face educational challenges and who need to develop either professional skills and/or social skills, before they are ready to attend further ordinary education or employment. They have diverse socio-economic backgrounds, interests, resources, and expectations for their own future. Part of them finds the normal school system inadequate (“too bookish”), and this is why they need other learning environments to stay in the educational system.
Poland: the beneficiaries within the first cycle of the project are students of the Specjalny Ośrodek Wychowawczy "Dom przy Rynku” Special Educational Centre (SOW) and, at the same time, students from the 7th and 8th grade (13/14-15-16-year-old) in public primary schools at the transition point to secondary education. "Dom przy Rynku" Special Educational Centre (SOW) has been working for many years with young people with behavioural problems both at school and in their natural environment. The centre supports pupils who may be at risk of social exclusion due to developmental disorders, learning difficulties and social ill functioning.
Portugal: the project is implemented in Matosinhos second chance school. The beneficiaries are young people who have dropped out from school, with low qualifications and at risk of social exclusion, living mostly in Matosinhos and other municipalities of Greater Porto, aged between 15 and 25 years, flagged by competent local services and institutions working with children and young people, for whom no adequate education/training response has yet been found.
Spain: the project is implemented in second chance centres (Jovent and Naüm in Palma de Mallorca) managed by third-sector entities with extensive experience in offering Initial and Continuing VET aimed at young people over 16 years of age who have dropped out of the education system, to offer training adapted to the needs of this profile of young people to improve both their professional qualification and their chances of finding employment.
Target groups:
VET teachers and trainers working with the above-mentioned beneficiaries; universities, third sector organisations, vocational schools, training centres and second chance schools/centres.
Education level and sector
Type of policy/initiative
Level of implementation / Scope
Since 2021
Aims of policy/initiative
The COSI.ed project pursues the following objectives:
- Upscale and implement the COSI.ed model to educational institutions in 5 European countries (Norway, Denmark, Portugal, Poland and Spain) by the end of the project period.
- Improve youth educational and employment pathways through efforts to: reduce early leaving from education and training and increase the percentage of students who complete/stay in education.
- Develop collaborative, participatory co-creating methods with youth, educational staff, researchers, stakeholders and policymakers.
- Contribute to the development of a more inclusive and egalitarian educational model adapted to the needs and society of today.
- Redesign the COSI.ed model to be applicable in the different social and geographical contexts of Europe, in different subject-matter areas and in different types of institutions by providing effective tools, guidelines and scientific evidence.
- Work with and towards policymakers at different levels to prepare the COSI.ed model for the possible implementation at the systemic level to include the model in future inclusive education and youth policies.
Features and types of activities implemented
- Training in the methodology of the educators in each of the entities where the project is applied.
- Adaptation of the methodology to each educational context and creation of regional application models.
- Implementation of the methodology in two phases (two school years).
- Impact evaluation at regional level.
- Improvement of the intervention models based on the results obtained and the monitoring of the regional working groups (Competence Collaborative Groups).
- Development of training materials and toolkits for the dissemination of good practices.
Resources
European Commission
Erasmus + project number: 621365-EPP-1-2020-1-NO-EPPKA3-IPI-SOC-IN
Evaluation of the measure
This project is still in the implementation phase. An initial impact assessment has been carried out through the collection of qualitative and quantitative indicators in each of the institutions where the project has been applied. At the same time, working groups (Competence Collaborative Groups) have been developed in each of the countries to analyse the method and its results and propose changes for its improvement in each of the contexts.
The project materials can be consulted at: https://cosied.eu/.
Evidence of effectiveness of the measure
The COSI.ed project aims to:
- create a socio-educational intervention methodology aimed at preventing drop-out and encouraging continuation of studies in different educational contexts;
- define a tool accessible to the whole educational community;
- work towards the inclusion of the intervention principles in future educational, training, and social policies at regional, national and European level.
Success factors
The project is in the second phase (2023) of implementation in the participating countries. The first results obtained with the implementation of COSI.ED methodology in the first cycle point to a significant improvement in the following aspects that have shown its influence on the prevention of early leaving from education and training:
- increased motivation towards training;
- improved learner-teacher relationships and strengthened engagement;
- improvement of self-esteem and sense of self-efficacy;
- improvement of the quality of peer relationships;
- improvement of school performance and achievement of educational, training, and work-related goals by young people;
- clarification of young people's educational and career aspirations.
More information about the project: https://cosied.eu/.
