School-driven Pop-ups Encouraging Entrepreneurship in preventing school Drop-out and Youth UnemPloyment

The number of unemployed youth and youth who are not in any form of employment, education or training (so-called “NEET”) in Europe has slightly decreased over the last decade. However, the proportion of NEETs remains significant (around 10% in France, Belgium and the UK) . Youth unemployment has a massive impact on young people’s well-being and quality of life and on society in general. Long-term youth unemployment is related to an increase in poverty and social inequality and puts our social security system in jeopardy . In this project, secondary school students actively engage in setting up pop-up businesses with close support from schools and businesses. Investing in youth entrepreneurship is part of the EU’s employment policy and of the EU’s Youth Strategy. Empowering youth in setting up small-scale (pop-up or start-up) businesses will increase the alignment of their skills with what employers and businesses look for, will increase their self-efficacy and life skills and enhance their formal and informal network in the employment sector. In addition, it will encourage the alignment of education and the employment sector. The target group of this project consists of young people at high risk of unemployment , generally youngsters from socio-economically vulnerable background with a low learning motivation.

- Feasibility study for private/public collaboration in the 2-Seas region: what are obstacles and levers to make student entrepreneurship possible? (technically, practically, evidence-based content) - Piloting a co-creative method that schools can use to set up businesses in collaboration with local services, businesses and in which the active involvement and participation of students is crucial - Tests of a model for private/public cooperation that allows students to learn outside the school, allows businesses and schools to teach together - Demonstrations of pop-up businesses by students

- A number of piloted pop-ups will result in actual businesses - Higher motivation and better life skills in target group - Less youth unemployment - Less drop-outs from secondary school

This project is ambitious. It will need the expertise of several project partners and 2Seas countries to be feasible and sustainable. In all countries, there is a combination of needs and experience on this domain. Combining all experience will enable to come up with a broader strategy for the European future of education. We will work together with project partners that have a particularly high level of youth unemployment and NEET.