ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION WITHOUT BORDERS: A ROAD TO YOUTH EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IN THE CROSS-BORDER REGION BULGARIA – ROMANIA
ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION WITHOUT BORDERS: A ROAD TO YOUTH EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION IN THE CROSS-BORDER REGION BULGARIA – ROMANIA

Summary/Abstract: This article presents a rationale for the development and implementation of the blended Bulgarian-Romanian Educational Scheme "Entrepreneurship without Borders". The approbation and evaluation processes were part of the of the project "Entrepreneurship for Youth Labour Mobility" ROBG169, financed under INTERREG V-A Romania- Bulgaria. The project addresses the following three bottlenecks in the provision of formal and non-formal Entrepreneurship education: insufficient links between vocational education and the business sector; limited representation of the economic potential of the cross-border region in the formal entrepreneurship education; the language barrier between Romanian and Bulgarian young people and teachers. The project concept approaches these issues as opportunities and by applying cross-border cooperation in the educational field, researches their potential. It also takes into consideration the European Commission report on the Impact of Entrepreneurship Training. The relevant findings define the framework of a Joint Bulgarian-Romanian Educational Scheme for the provision of Entrepreneurship education in the formal curriculum. Then the project enables the teachers from two High Schools in Economics from Silistra, Bulgaria and Calarasi, Romania to jointly develop and implement 3 programs that make up the Joint Educational Scheme, namely: ‗Enterprise without Frontiers‘, ‗Green Enterprise‘, ‗Language training with group exchanges and study-visits to cross-border companies‘ and ‗Practical experience‘. In order to expand the impact of the training activities and to involve more people in the region, the project develops a learning platform for the provision of e-learning on entrepreneurship, part of the project website www.e4ylm.eu. Firstly, the paper discusses the methods applied by the expert team when analysing the national policies and legislation on the provision pf entrepreneurship education in school education in Bulgaria and Romania and in particular in the two economic vocational schools, participating in the project. The analytical findings from this comparative approach define the challenges and opportunities for joint cross-border educational activities between Bulgarian and Romanian educational institutions. Then, the expert team did a desk research to justify and design the content of the educational program, which was developed and approbated in the two participating vocational schools. The author also presents the Methodology used to evaluate the impact of the joint educational activities on the students‘ skills to communicate across the borders and on their entrepreneurship knowledge. Based on the results of the survey, the article draws conclusions and recommends the application of specific educational activities in entrepreneurship in the cross-border region, so as to increase the employability of young people.

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