ECO NET in Kosovo/a

Due to the economic situation in Kosovo/a, projects such as ECO NET, which are orientated towards small- and medium-sized companies, offer a good basis for the training of the future workforce by putting theoretical knowledge into practice. Until now, vocational education was not particularly orientated towards the needs of the business world. These facts have led to the following objectives being set for the country programme for Kosovo/a:

a) Imparting basic knowledge in the fields of business management, information technology for business and teaching methods for training firms work.

b) A general introduction into training firms work and the establishment of training firms at the three participating pilot schools in the school year 2005/6.

c) The fitting out of business centres (office space) at three pilot schools for the training firms work.

d) The development of a training firms' network.

e) The establishment of a Central Office (Service Centre) together with the competent education authorities

The following parts of the programme were implemented between March and November 2005:

• Module 1.1 Subject teaching methods for business management I (April 2005)
• Module 1.2 Subject teaching methods for business management II (May 2005)
• Module 2.1 Equipping the business centres at the six pilot schools (November 2005)
• Module 2.2:Founding and organisation of training firms (June 2005)
• Participation in the international training firms fair in Freistadt (March 2005)
• Module 1.3:Data Processing (October 2005)
• Module 0.4: Consultation (October 2005)

On the basis of these activities, the first training firms will be founded and developed at the pilot schools at the beginning of the school year 2005/06. 2005 also saw further training seminars, the participation in a fair in Austria as well as the networking of the training firms, among other activities.

The implementation of the project targets and contents will take place in cooperation with the relevant education authorities, headteachers and teachers. ECO NET will be implemented in Kosovo/a from March 2005 to February 2006 (24 months) in cooperation with swisscontact.