Project Modular curriculum for Training Firms is based on three pillars:

• development of new Modular curriculum for Training Firms (TF), based on entrepreneurial competences and in cooperation with good practice example from the EU (Secondary economic school Celje, partner in the project)
• development of ICT solutions for the delivery of the new curriculum
• "VET TF Incubator"

The duration of the project is 14 months (September 2010 – November 2011). The main objective of the project is to increase the entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and attitudes in economic VET school staff and students based on the learning outcomes. The current curriculum of TF needs to be modified regarding the labour market needs and it needs to communicate with other subjects. These are two additional features which the current curriculum for TF does not encompass but which are crucial for increasing the employability and practical skills and knowledge. In order to deliver a new curriculum, capacities of school management and all teachers, especially teachers of TF subjects, need to be advanced in integrating the new ICT solutions as a response to ever-demanding labour market needs in view of the IT capacities.

Target groups and final beneficiaries

Target groups of the project are students, teachers and school management of Economic school Katarina Zrinski. All teachers of VET Katarina Zrinski will take part in the project to open their mind in the sense of increasing their entrepreneurial competences in order to identify areas where their subject can correlate to TF subject in synergy to advance the learning output. The teachers of Training Firm subject will take part in the course of the project to upgrade the active methods of educating and training with open discussion on new Modular curriculum and practical suggestion regarding its implementation. The school management and teachers will be also trained to raise their awareness of entrepreneurship, and to advance the positioning of VET school in the national and international environment.

Final beneficiaries are the overall economic and non-economic VET schools in Croatia, Agency for Vocational Education and Training (AVET), Croatian Chamber of Economy (CCE), Croatian Employment Service (CES), City of Zagreb, as well as the local/regional and, in the long-term, national economy. CCE and CES have identified the need to connect the curricula of VET system to the labour market needs and are participating in the project from their field of expertise to contribute to the final outcome. Feedbacks and guidelines from CES and CCE will be integrated in the Curriculum and permanently updated.

Good Practice Example in EU

Modular curriculum for TF in partner school Secondary economic school Celje (Slovenia) will serve as a platform for developing Croatian TF curriculum adapted to local/regional/national educational and labour market needs. This result is accompanied by Study visit of students, TF teachers and members of school management of VET Katarina Zrinski to Secondary Economic School Celje. They had a chance to see on the spot how the delivery of Modular Curriculum in VET Celje functions as well as the daily life and operation of Slovene Centre for TF. This activity took place on December 8th 2010.

Project bodies and their role

At the beginning of the project Work team, Operative body and External evaluation team were formed. The reason for forming 3 expert bodies is to facilitate the implementation of proposed project activities from different expert fields. Work team is consisted of experts in order to develop Modular curriculum for TF. Operative body will regularly monitor achieved results, as they have been planned in the project, and formed by the consortium of partners. External evaluation team will monitor and evaluate the Pilot project of Curriculum. This team will function in the frame of Pilot project and it will produce results at the end of the project which will be respectively incorporated in the final version of the Modular curriculum.

Main project activities

The Project management is divided into the following activities: project management, distribution of assignments, control of assignments implementation, correction, reporting, elaboration of implementation plan, organization of meetings and project activities. The outputs are the quality project management and related implemented project activities according to the application, time sheets, and reports.

The Development of Modular curriculum for TF is divided into research of current TF curriculum, research of good practice example from Slovenia, study visit of students and TF teachers to Secondary Economic School Celje and creation of Modular curriculum for TF. The development of curriculum is divided into two phases: the first phase is meant for 2nd and 3rd grade students which is going to be launched as a pilot project and the second phase for 1st and 4th grade students the results of which will be incorporated in the Collective Modular curriculum for TF for economic VET at the end of the project. The final result of this activity will be Modular curriculum for TF and Handbook for implementing the TF curriculum.

The ICT solutions for modular TF subject consists of research of current state-of-the-art e-learning and interactive websites in facilitating the TF subject, the development of software for modular curriculum for TF, the development of interactive website for TF, and web-streaming of project activities among VET Katarina Zrinski and VET Celje in Croatia and EU. Final results of these actions will be the creation of software for managing TF within VET schools, and interactive website.

The Education Training on delivering new curriculum and the use of ICT solutions consists of three workshops delivered to 3 target groups: 1-day Workshop Package "School management", 2-days Workshop Package "Teachers of all subjects", 6-days Workshop Package "TF teachers".

The Modular curriculum for TF will be developed and tested via Pilot project in the VET Katarina Zrinski (February 2011 - June 2011). The Pilot project will be conducted on two classes of 2nd and two classes of 3rd grade students in VET Katarina Zrinski whereby for the each class one control class will serve as monitoring instrument for qualitative and quantitative analysis of the effectiveness of the new Curriculum. Pre and post analysis of entrepreneurial competences will be conducted and students will mutually measure their performance via Portfolio assessment. The result of this activity is expected to be increased competences of students, TF teachers and school management. The whole process and the feedback reports by teachers, Work group and students will be used for finalising the Modular curriculum for TF.

The "VET Incubator for TF" will combine all Training Firms and provide them with support in establishment via university experts. This activity will be performed at the end of the project to summarise and centralise the results of all previous actions in exchanging best practice and preparing the students for the turbulent business world.

Associates in the project

Associates in the project are CES and CCE that showed interest in participation and provided data on the labour market needs and this fruitful collaboration is expected to continue, especially in view of the fact that one expert of each organisation is in Work team for developing curricula and one in External evaluation team. University College of Economics, Entrepreneurship and Management Nikola Šubić Zrinski provides expertise and mentorship in establishing the "VET TF Incubator" at VET Katarina Zrinski. Furthermore, relevant professors are selected to be a part of External evaluation team. Two enterprises (Mesnice Fiolić Ltd. and Rudan Ltd.) are associates in the project to strengthen the connection of VET Katarina Zrinski, provide data on the needs of the real business role and one person per each enterprise will be a part of a Work team of the External evaluation team.

Sustainability of the project

The outcome of the project, the Modular curriculum for TF, will be presented to the Sector Council of the Agency for Vocational Education for evaluation with the aim of incorporating it in all economic and, in the long term, non economic VET. Since the Curriculum will be designed to continuously communicate with local/regional surrounding, the labour market, the public bodies and business sector, it will ensure good positioning of VET school in relation to mentioned stakeholders and contribute to advancing the employability of VET students. The sustainability of the project is guaranteed by the "VET TF incubator", which will be set up as an educational consortium of educational institutions interested to support this kind of toolkits for doing virtual TF business and it can be a platform for exchanging ideas and brainstorming new programmes and projects.

Main objectives of the project:

The project aims to advance the entrepreneurial competences of Vocational Education and Training (VET) students, teachers and school management by establishing Modular curriculum for Training Firms (TF) as permanent response to local/regional labour market needs. Also, Its objective is increasing the employability of VET students and contributing to local/regional economy.

Another aim is to prepare and introduce the Modular curriculum for TF based on good practice example from Slovenia, facilitated by new ICT solutions and included as a pilot project in VET economic school.

This project is implemented by Economic school Katarina Zrinski. The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission.