INTRODUCTION
We are
currently living in an age where globalization plays an important part of our
everyday life. We have to embrace all
the strategies to ensure both economic growth, environmental protection and
most of all social integration.
As social
integration plays an integral part of the European Union’s strategies, the aim
should not be just focusing on the financial crisis and methods to improve the
European economy, but also to find ways to improve the quality of people’s
lives and provide them with the hope for the future. Our project aims to give
to all the stakeholders of our society an opportunity to create a better life
for themselves.
S.I.T.E is
a partnership project involving four countries: Cyprus (coordinator), Italy,
Lithuania and Spain. This partnership brings together four European Adult Education providers which
deliver a range of formal-informal and non-formal programmes to learners.
All partner
Institutions have broadly the same aims:
1- To develop individual and social
skills;
2- To develop critical thinking amongst
learners;
3- To encourage students to engage and
progress in further education programmes.
The project
which we have undertaken requires great cooperation between different
countries. The goal of this cooperation is to create a mechanism which will
ensure a positive result in quality education. We are trying to promote to our
students the positive effects in their lives of following their studies,
through formal, informal and non-formal education.
This
project aims to address how social and personal skills development can be
explored and measured. We have been engaged to explore each partner’s work and
methodologies, to experience how each partner measures the soft skills
development of learners and how each partner promotes positive social
integration with the disadvantaged and socially excluded groups which we work
with.
The first
meeting was in Limassol-Cyprus (October 27h-November 1st
2011), the second in Piedrabuena-Spain ( March 27th- April 1st 2012), the third in Siauliai- Lithuania (
June 27th-July 1st 2012). The next meeting is going to be
in Avezzano-Italy from 7th to 11th November 2012. The
final meeting was again in
Limassol-Cyprus from 14th to 19th May
2013.
The individual
methodologies and practices of each partner’s
organization have been shared and analyzed to enable each partner to
gain a new insight into their own work. During the meetings each partner
organization has presented their own current practices and methodologies to
each other.
We have
exchanged experience within each organization, we have developed a holistic
approach to education and we have shared modes of good practices between
partners.
We have
created a mechanism based on a
questionnaire-observation and interview procedure.
At the
beginning, halfway through and again at the end of the year, the students have filled out the
questionnaire about their individual skills comparing their initial personal
skills with their development in the areas worked on in the lessons. They have
participated in individual and group sessions with the guidance of the teacher
to reflect upon the new skills they have been developing. They have put into
practice the techniques referring to individual and social skills provided by
the teachers.
During the meetings each organization has
shown to the partners the results of the questionnaires given to the learners
at the beginning of the educational process. Then all the partners have presented
their own observation and the results of the interviews. All observations have
been taken into consideration to allow improvements of the courses.
We hope
that our involvement in this project can lead to a creation of a tool that can
be applied smoothly and effectively in any EU member state.
