Barbara Božič
National Institute for Vocational Education and Training

National Institute for Vocational Education and Training and social inclusion of youth

In the past period, the National Institute for Vocational Education and Training has managed a project of preventing unsuccessfulness in school and mitigating its effects, according to the development programme for application of Starting Points for the Preparation of Education Programmes in Lower and Secondary Vocational Education and Programmes of Secondary Professional Education [Izhodišča za pripravo izobraževalnih programov nižjega in srednjega poklicnega izobraževanja ter programov srednjega strokovnega izobraževanja],

Unsuccessfulness in school indirectly, if not directly, creates social exclusion, since juveniles without basic vocational education have minimal chances of employment, are gradually excluded from the world of work and are deprived of opportunity of being included into society in general.

Among the achievements of the project are a set of measures for preventing dropping out in vocational and professional education and a model of information and counselling for youth, who drop out of education system and are not included into programmes of active employment policy.

Preventive measures for preventing dropping out (PUPO)

The starting point for planning of suggested measures was above all the findings on the causes for dropping out. It is seen that the drop-out rate is influenced by various and multi-layered factors that can be attributed to:
• Pupils/students – we are talking about the characteristics of the learning motivation, learning habits, about adaptation to the requirements of secondary education and the school environment itself, about the choice of education programme, behavioural patterns of the student, etc.;
• Social and cultural environment – We are talking about the characteristics of the student's family, the style of raising children i.e. encouragement of the parents, social and economic status of the family, characteristics of the culture and occurrences within the close social environment, etc.
• school system or its activity – structure of programmes, organization of provision, didactic methods, methods for verification and assessment of knowledge, transience, etc.;

Considering the mentioned groups of factors, the range of measures for preventing dropping out was structured to include:
• Primary preventive measures (counselling for the whole population before entering vocational/professional school, and at the beginning of the school, to prevent greater problems);
• Secondary preventive measures (Intervention of the vocational/professional school at the emergence of problems);
• Tertiary preventive measures (preventing spreading of the existing disturbance and problems) and assistance measures, which must necessarily follow prevention that may have not been successful enough.

The measures, i.e. sets of suggestions are related to different fields:
• Organization of school's work, pedagogical management of the school and cooperation of experts within the school;
• Cooperation of employers (also chambers) and local environment with the school,
• Cooperation of the school with the Employment Service of Slovenia, cooperation of school with parents;
• Activities for successful social integration of students;
• Activities in the field of career orientation;
• Activities for personal and social development of students; 
• Activities for raising quality of learning processes;
• Activities for raising quality of teaching and observation of characteristics and needs of the students;
• Activities intended for high-at-risk groups of students;
• Analytical and development work of the school;
• Suggestions of systemic measures for increasing transience (horizontal and vertical);
• Suggestions for harmonisation of minimal standards of knowledge that is required for a passing grade;
• Assistance to students during learning, social integration and career orientation.

Within the framework of the PUPO project, we are, together with 20 vocational and professional schools, preparing comprehensive individual programmes for implementation of suggested measures.

School expert teams have created their own vision of realization of the programme for preventing dropping out and have set main goals that are to be achieved by implementing preventive activities. Until the beginning of the next academic year (2005/06) action plans for implementation of the measures by individual levels of prevention will be prepared.

The measures will be continually monitored, altered if necessary on the basis of findings and expanded into other school environments together with examples of good practice.

Information and counselling for youth, who are not included into the education system (ISM network)

Young people, who drop out of the education system or withdraw from school, thereby lose the student status and also social security rights that are linked to this status. As they lose the status, we have no information any more on what is happening to them. In the past, this situation has already been tried to be amended by introducing tighter cooperation between the Employment Service of Slovenia and the schools, and on the national level there was an agreement made between the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport and the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs on systematic monitoring and assistance to youth who drop out of education. All principals and school counsellors were notified of the agreement and have received instructions to monitor students who have left education. The cooperation did yield results, but we have discovered that a significant number of juveniles nevertheless do not receive suitable support.

This situation has contributed to the decision to find this group of juveniles, to draw them into the counselling process and offer them support, until they are ready for employment, education, training, medical treatment or for accepting other forms of "institutionalized assistance".

Since April, information  and counselling is thus offered in five offices of Vocational Information and Counselling Centre (Ljubljana, Maribor, Koper, Kranj, Velenje) that are organized in the regional offices of the Employment Service of Slovenia and at the folk high school Smeri in Ravne na Koroškem, and it is provided by specifically qualified counsellors – ISM counsellors.

Published in the collection of papers from the second convocation on Employment – social inclusion. Dvigovanje zaposlitvenega potenciala mladih, Rogaška Slatina 2005. Urad RS za mladino in Mladinski CEH – Nefiks.