Introduction

The current situation in the labour market and the field of human resources development essentially weakens the development strength and capacity of the Koroška region. The educational structure of its population is still extremely low. The region is also characterized by a high rate of "brain drain". The students, after completing their studies, seek for jobs elsewhere; they mostly stay in Ljubljana or Maribor. Besides that we can sense great discrepancies between supply and demand for highly educated experts in the Koroška region. On one hand, there is a high supply of graduates of social sciences – last year for example, 69 students from Koroška have graduated at both faculties of education, 124 at faculties of economy and law, while the total number of graduates from Koroška at technical faculties (machine science, construction, electric science, computer science) was only 42 (SURS, 2003). Similar situation is seen in secondary education. On the other hand, the companies mostly search for technology experts of all levels of education. The described structural discrepancy at the labour market is also the main reason for the increasing number of young people among the unemployed. The fact is that knowledge has become the main factor of development in a modern society. Without suitably qualified and motivated highly educated workers, especially those with technical education, the companies in the Koroška region will not be able to update their products fast enough, raise added value in production and consequently compete with rivals from Slovenia, Europe and other parts of the world; a critical mass of such experts is thus indispensable.

As a response to the mentioned findings, activities have been developed and carried out for the past four years under the projects "Ostani tu" (2002, 2003) and "Mladi – razvojni potencial Koroške" (2004, 2005), which are trying to improve the situation in this field. These activities have started in 2002, when the club of students of Koroška and the Business centre Slovenj Gradec (the manager of the project since the beginning has been Matej Mohorko) organized a fair of employment potentials to link the companies and young students and thus decrease the drain of highly educated graduates from the region, and to secure suitable experts for the companies of the region. The most important result of these first measures were the findings that there is a great discrepancy at the labour market in the region between the supply and demand for experts, and that for successful abolition of these problems efficient and interconnected acts of all regional role-players that work in this field are needed. Since then the project "Ostani tu" became a region-wide project that includes all main role-players in the fields of employment and human resources development of the Koroška region, and operates in different fields from situation analysis, information and counselling to training and education.  More widely set goals were the reason for renaming of the project to "Mladi – razvojni potencial Koroške" in 2004. According to the suggestion of the creators of the project and the decision of the administrative comittee of the CCIS – regional office Koroška Since 2004, the project activities have been provided within the newly established Koroška Centre for Higher Education, which has secured its lastingness. The project now links the schools and companies of the region, the regional development agency, the club of students of Koroška region, the Business Centre Slovenj Gradec and regional offices of the Employment Service of Slovenia, and is also supported by the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, which cofinances this year's activites. This enables sensing and analysis of the trends at the labour market on time, access to target groups of the project (youth, their parents, unemployed, school counsellors, media and thus wider public) as well as achievement of credibility among these groups and achievement of set goals.

Project activities

1. Gathering and anylsis of data

from all existing sources (ESS, SORS, analyses on national level, EU level, level of regional institution, surveying, etc.) on the situation and trends at the regional, national and European labour market is the fundamental suport activity for all other activities. We are gathering data on the needs, realization and the unemployment rate in the region, on trends of enrollment into secondary schools and universities, on company scholarships, on new planned employments in companies of the region, on trends at the national labour market, on EU guidelines in this field, etc.

2. Mediation of current data and information for target groups:

we are trying to achieve that the information to all target groups are available in different ways. For this purpose we have been providing seminars on the current situation and trends at the modern labour market for two years now in most primary and secondary schools in the region. They are given for students of final years  as well as for their parents and teachers. More than 1000 eight-grade primary schools and secondary school graduates have participated in the  last two academic years, , as well as 400 parents. The purpose of these seminars is to mediate the current information on different viewpoints of the situation at the labour market and global trends in this field. Through the project "Ostani tu" we have namely discovered that young people (together with their parents) now base their decisions on emotional impulses and stereotypical ideas on unperspectivity of some industries, which adds to the increased discrepancy at the labour market. We additionally wish to warn the youth about new demands of the labour market, e.g. life-long learning, additional skills, wider notion of literacy, etc. By organizing public forums and round tables on different themes that are related to the fields in question and by publishing articles in local and national media we try to raise the awarenes of the public on noted problems and trends.

3. Open doors of companies of Koroška region:

to recognize the deficitary industries, we hold "open door" days in companies and institutions of the Koroška region, where working places, educational programmes for the occupations, posibilities of obtaining a company scholarship and professional practice in a company are presented to young people, who are making a decision on continuing their education. Last year as many as 250 graduates and eight-grade pupils have participated in these presentations.

4. Project cooperation of companies and students "Mladi – asi":

it has been noticed that talented, young graduates do not stay in the region. The comapnies on the other hand cannot find highly educated workers. Within the framework of the project cooperation named "Mladi – asi", companies have a chance to solve specific business problems, get fresh ideas and at the same time make acquaintance with their possible future coworkers. On the other hand, this is a chance for students to test their theoretical knowledge in practice, to obtain new knowledge and meet possible employers. Last year we have organized four of such project cooperations. The responsees of the companies are positive, but we also see that more streeson motivating students  as well as  detailed creation of the system or methodology of cooperation will be needed.

5. Free workshops on useful knowledge and skills:

with cost-free workshops, classes and seminars we are trying to "arm" the youth with skills that are necessary for successful existence in the modern knowledge-based society and encourage them at the same time to choose their studies in perspective absolutely necessary for efficiency in the modern society and at the same are not well represented in the formal education system, e.g.: communication skills with basics of rhetorics for secondary school students, business workshops for primary school students, preparation of good projects for students and representatives of different societies, foreign language courses, introduction to the technical legislation for students of technical fields, basics of labour law for young first-time jobseekers, 3D-modelling, designing of multimedia presentations, publications design, creative workshops, creativity in technical occupations for technical secondary schools students, etc. Until now, 440 young people were included in these activities.