From agricultural high schools to becoming a farmer

Filiala Cluj-Napoca

The current application describes three educational components, aimed at supporting the transformation of agricultural high schools into helping the students to develop entrepreneurial abilities and to be connected into a real agricultural market.

This final goal approached by a combination of three educational components: study visits, relevant practicum, and promoting school offer the community/ networking to attract motivated candidates and partners, that will help the high school become an active actor in the community, an effective education provider, and a catalyst for economic development.

The project is part of a more complex program/intervention implemented in partnership/consortium, aiming to support agricultural high-schools to make their educational offer more relevant for the local economy. In the consortium’s vision, the high schools take an active role in the community for the development of small and medium farms and agricultural businesses, therefore we will provide in this program the increase capacity of the young farmers to integrate in the agricultural market.

The current application is a replication/multiplication of the piloting program phase, where the model interventions have been tested and adapted with old high schools that we will continue the program for the next three years. Also, we will replicate the models interventions for new high schools that we will integrate them in the current program. An important component of the program is to increase the capacity of high school representatives to continue the initiative independently.

The project tackles 3 important problems in agricultural education – the lack of effective practice experience, lack of relevant case studies and school promotion that can inform and motivate the students in their future labour places or private initiatives.

The project approach takes existing receipts – study visits, presentation, short practical relevant exercises, contexts for reflecting on their experience and shares it with others and mixes them in an integrated method, focusing on the quality of the process and on effective learning techniques. Each study visit session will focus on the one side on the technical aspects and on the other hand on how the technical skills and expertise can be used for self-employment. The study visits will have an important motivational goal by providing the students with the plain reality on how to start and successfully manage your agribusiness.

The approach will contribute to the development of the practicum/internship models that will be developed based on the best practices in agricultural education in EU countries, and will be chosen from contexts similar with the Romanian conditions (size of farms, range of agricultural products, natural and geographical conditions, type of agricultural schools, etc.). This process will generate, on one hand, a relevant for the Romanian context product, applicable to most of the high schools, and, on the other hand, an increased capacity and motivation of the high schools, as well as a buy-in of the model and the implications and changes that should be done at the high school & teams as a prerequisite for the implementation.

The project has the transversal goal to develop a model that can be transferred in any agricultural high school having as promoters and actors the teachers involved in the program.

The promotional campaigns bring for the schools an added value in this program, because they have to establish an relevant educational offer to promote effectively in the community to attract motivated candidates, partners and stakeholders using know-how from the piloted model, high schools will develop the ability to create/find opportunities to develop the capacity to build their own promotional campaigns itineraries.

Networking with relevant local and central stakeholders is viewed as crucial for the school, and benefits are underlined both for the school and for students and teachers. Increasing the capacity of the schools involved through the provide guidance (trainings, consultancy etc.) and to finance themselves the study tours and promotional campaign (from 25% in Y1 to 50% in Y2, 100% in Y3).

At the same time, the program proposes that at the end of the 3 years of implementation agricultural high schools have the knowledge, experience, support of the networks created to be financially self-sustaining for the continuation of the three educational components provided by the program.

In a nutshell, we will work with the 6 high schools to:

• plan and start to implement a meaningful practicum;
• organize study tours (including training for interactive teaching/facilitation methods so students can maximize their learning; financial support – small grants and training in fund-raising);
• organize promotion campaigns (including training on communication; financial support – small grants and training in fund-raising);
• organize events and cultivate relationships with local stakeholders, potential new partners of the high schools
• facilitate a good integration of all initiatives in the program (including entrepreneurial education provided by JAR and support for project design provided by CEED) and a better customization to the specific needs of each of the six high schools.

Partners:

World Vision România (WVR), Junior Achievement România (JAR), Centrul pentru Educație Economică și Dezvoltare din România (CEED), Centrul Român pentru Politici Europene (CRPE)

Highschools coordinated by Civitas: Liceul Tehnologic nr.1 (Salonta, BH), Colegiul „Emil Negrutiu” (Turda, CJ), Liceul Tehnologic Agricol „Alexandru Borza” (Ciumbrud, AB), Colegiul Agricol „Daniil Popovici Barcianu” (Sibiu, SB), Colegiul Agricol „Traian Săvulescu” (Târgu Mureș, MS), Colegiul Tehnic Agricol „Alexandru Borza” (Geoagiu, HD).