Completing secondary education 

About the project

Completing secondary education (CSE) is a project based on the idea to find a way for school to encourage students to finish secondary education. 

​

Early school leaving causes an increasing level of concern in many countries. Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Iceland and Norway all has well-financed, well-approved and well-structured upper secondary school systems. All the same, the proportion of students not completing their upper secondary education is worrying high in all these countries.

Early school leaving is known to be linked to a series of social variables, such as family income and parental educational level. However, a rising attention is given to what the schools can do in order to increase the proportion of students graduating on time. Formal education is increasingly important in all fields to get work, and this is even more important when the job marked is tightening.

 

In this project, six similar schools will cooperate to counteract early school leaving. These are combined upper secondary schools, all offering both general studies and VET. They have a comparable size, and the offer many of the same lines of study. All have made great efforts in reducing the early school leaving problem. Together, they have experienced many successful measures to make students complete their education. The next step is to compare these measures, share good practice and test methods that have proven successful in other, comparable schools. The partner schools all have an extensive collaboration with local working life. Work placements and other forms for cooperation between school and working life plays a central role in motivating young people to finish their education. We will compare our relationships to working life, and bring forward good ideas as to how improve this cooperation.

Statistics regarding school completion is a main focus in the project. We will measure results of implemented measures on statistics on school completion. The schools use different statistical tools to survey the students' educational careers, and we will seek good practices on how to use and interpret these statistics.

Dissemination plays a central role in the project. Although these schools have a similar structure and easily can exchange ideas, we believe that well-working ideas from these schools will also prove efficient in other upper secondary schools. We also aspire to bring forward new ideas to county authorities, higher education and policy makers. The schools will spread the ideas of measures counteracting early school leaving in their local networks, in their counties, and at regional, national and international levels.

One of the partner schools is a member of the EFVET network. This will be a central network for dissemination. We believe that through international cooperation by similar schools, and by collaboration with workplaces and universities, we will be able to reduce the proportion of school dropouts in the involved schools and create a base of good practice towards reduction in early school leavers across regional and national borders.

​

Idea

 - Can we get more students to complete their secondary education through international work?
 - Similar partners
 - Similar challenges
 - Different solutions
 - Different use of statistics and statistical tools

We aim to build a set of best-practice tools in the work towards reducing early school leaving

​

Project outline

 - Mapping of methods used to increase school completion on time
 - Mapping of statistical tools and methods use
 - Creating a set of best-practice tools for increasing school completion
 - School leaders, counselors, teachers
 - Development of statistical tools and guidelines for use
 - Involvement of universities, county authorities and social authorities
  -Spread of results - final conference, EFVET conference

​

Partners:

- Charlottenlund videregående skole, Norway 
- Verkmenntaskólinn á Akureyri, Iceland
- Richard-Riemerschmid Berufskolleg, Germany
- ROOC Noorderport, Netherlands
- Axxell Utbildning, Finland
- Tech College Aalborg, Denmark

All partners are large upper secondary schools, offering both vocational and general studies