Nowadays, the huge distance between young people and the labour market is one of the most struggling thematic we must bear. Way too often, students are not prepared to face it having few practical skills to be immediately competitive; on the other side, the employers are not willing to risk upon hiring a young student who needs to be thoroughly coached.
According to Eurostat, the youth (under 25 years) unemployment rate in the EU28 area still shows high numbers (almost 17%), and since the statistics has not notably changed over the last years, its future trend will not likely differ from the current one.
This is the real challenge that the project IN PLACE wants to tackle, since it aims to fill as much as possible the mentioned gap between schools and enterprises; more specifically, vocational schools and SMEs, which employ two thirds of the European workforce.
The project is the result of the cooperation and the experience gathered by 7 organisations from 6 countries. IN PLACE focuses on the solid improvement of young people’s digital and computing skills. Through these abilities, the students will be able to stand out, namely making video presentations for business marketing.
Thanks to this project, both teachers and students will get access to new knowledge and skills, raising the bar of vocational education to a higher level. Furthermore, SMEs will be highly informed about the students’ proficiencies, since they will be digitally connected, and they will be fully aware of their potential productivity.
If you want to be fully updated about the development of the project, IN PLACE has its own website on which you can easily find what you are looking for in terms of modern technologies, SMEs, and vocational schools: the use of video podcast to publicize local businesses represents a straight method to combine those three perspectives.
The website is clear and not dispersive. Besides the section for the video presentations – which more than 60 students will be involved in – another part is dedicated to a useful guide aimed at providing all the tools and advices to create online business video cards, recommendations, and information.