European record for the number of NEET (people not (engaged) in education, employment or training), 120 thousands of not-covered job openings every months and school drop-out rate is at 30%: there is obviously something wrong with Italian education system. Italian education system is said to be stagnant, filling students with knowledge but not with know-how, making them unprepared in efficiently approaching the labour world.
On the other side, students are becoming more and more alienated. The current system seems to have not enough time and resources to train, motivate and provide them with a concrete hope and possibility for growth. Even worse, who fails to participate in the system is seen as a flawed result, whose deficits are difficult or impossible to be solved.
Why our system is unable to motivate students?
Main difficulty of young people lies in navigating schools, curricula, training paths, job postings while remaining focused on personal characteristics, skills, difficulties, background and projects. In a word, a lack of guidance. Young students often choose their paths according to (or forced by) parents’ opinions, or with the idea of remaining close to friends. Conversely, it is important to start to build a future career project since the first steps in education.
Teachers’ marks and entry tests are becoming more and more unreliable. They are based on a snapshot of the student, providing no information about its background and potential for growth. Marks are often based on personal ideas, and have the potential to annihilate possibility to change, build new projects, change an find a new motivation. Or they can overestimate students’ potential, fostering self-esteem but distorting self-awareness.
Students’ personal decisions must be supported, no matter which educational path they opt for.
General judgments have also supported clichés discrediting vocational education and training (VET) schools, which often suffers from lack of resources, especially in South Italy. These clichés are totally misplaced: VET schools have better chances to adapt to the labour world dynamics and develop training and technological innovation. Indeed they have been the first organisations to engage in the Erasmus+ programme, which allows mobility for internships, international partnerships and development of new approaches and tools supporting innovation in teaching.
Choice of school is a decisive moment for students because it is an act resulting from listening to themselves and defining the path for their future growth. Made for Skills offers activities supporting educational and professional guidance to help students to develop that self-awareness which is necessary to face change. Our activities include information about the social, economic and labour context, in order to support informed and aware choices.
Contact us to define a school guidance activity plan to meet the needs of your students, improve the quality of their relation with education and train them to develop their life projects.
