In collaboration with the Berlin Department of Education, IPLE has been implementing Productive Learning three year pilot projects in 9 Berlin schools and one other educational institution since September 1996. Students of the 9th and 10th grade are given the chance to investigate their personal work-orientation and professional career. At the same time schools and business organisations are brought together in the fight against youth unemployment. The project is financed by the European Social Fund. IPLE hopes that these new educational programmes will join INEPS.

Aims of the Project:

In view of the extensive economic and political restructuring in the Berlin area as well as the restructuring of the labour market, there is a long term need for educational innovation in order to prepare school-leavers for the transition to professional life. The number of unemployed young people in Berlin is one of the highest in the Federal Republic of Germany: 18% in West Berlin and 11.6% in East Berlin cf. the statistics published by the Federal Employment Office in 1995. It is especially important to open up new possibilities for socially and educationally disadvantaged young people on the employment market.

The school and socio-pedagogical projects "Productive Learning in Berlin Schools" are intended to serve this purpose. In these projects general education is linked to vocational guidance; young people have the opportunity, by means of Productive Learning, to gain one or two years experience in various vocational areas of their own choice. These measures also aim at a close cooperation between schools and enterprises.

The considerable experience, both at local and international level, acquired by the Institute of Productive Learning in Europe, has shown that this is a good means of assisting the young people involved in making a successful transition from school to work as well as encouraging firms, especially smaller ones, to create new training places and jobs. The project "Productive Learning in Berlin Schools" is, therefore, useful in projects in the 9th and 10th year at comprehensive schools, in rescuing disadvantaged school-leavers from the fate of unemployment and in stimulating the creation of new training places and jobs.

Participating Schools/Institutions

On the basis of 8 years experience with the Berlin school project, "Die Stadt-als-Schule Berlin", as well as similar Productive Learning projects in 15 countries and the experiences and concepts of Berlin special schools for slow learners, Productive Learning educational courses in vocational orientation (comprising one group each of between 15 and 30 students) will be set up in 8 Berlin schools, beginning in the school year 1996/97 and lasting for four years, at the following comprehensive secondary schools:

* 1st Hauptschule, Hellersdorf,
* 1st Hauptschule, Lichtenberg
* 1st Real-Hauptschule, Prenzlauer Berg,
* Waldenburg-Oberschule, Schöneberg

and at the special educational centres and remedial schools

* Martin-Luther-King-School, Reinickendorf,
* Pestalozzi-Schule, Zehlendorf,
* Richard-Keller-Schule, Reinickendorf,
* Schule am Breiten Luch, Hohenschönhausen,
* Wilhelm-Busch-Schule, Wedding

Furthermore, the youth vocational assistance project

* "Learning to Live"

part of the Association for Unemployed Young People, Berlin-Mitte, in cooperation with the 1st Real-Hauptschule Prenzlauer Berg, will complement the school projects by offering socio-educational counselling and support in the area of vocational orientation, also on the basis of Productive Learning methods.
The educational projects combine individual vocational guidance with personality and general development ("key qualifications") and include additional exchange and cooperation components with international partners, in the framework of the International Network of Productive Schools (INEPS). They are school experiments in accordance with §3 of the Berlin Schools Law (cf. official authorisations).

Innovational Tasks of the Educators

The school projects will be complemented by the activity of 17 teachers, accompanying pupils and assisting school-leavers in the process of this transition and in their efforts to get a start in professional life; their (just existing) activity will, be enriched now by the principles and methods of Productive Learning.

The two or more teachers involved in each school as well as the educators from the youth project "Learning to Live" will assume, in addition to their normal teaching duties, innovatory tasks on the development of model projects in the context of the project "Productive Learning in Berlin Schools". The first year of the project is a preparatory year during which the educators acquire additional qualifications and establish the structure and organisation of the project on a firm footing.

The innovative tasks of the educators can be divided into two areas:

First Area of Tasks: Project Evaluation and International Networking

This area of scientific tasks comprises accompaniment and counselling, as well as the international networking of the model projects and the pupils and teachers involved in them. The educators develop, document and evaluate the educational project in cooperation with the educational authorities and others responsible; they also implement exchange and networking activities. IPLE, making use of the great variety of experiences and material which it has gained and developed in the course of the last 5 years (cf. I. Böhm / J. Schneider, Productive Learning - an Educational Opportunity for Young People in Europe, Milow 1966), advises the schools involved in preparing, initiating, establishing, implementing, documenting and evaluating their educational project.

Furthermore, the Institute advises and supports the schools in the process of international networking (telecommunications, conferences, exchanges etc.), performs public relations work and is responsible for publications and dissemination tasks in order to transmit positive project results to regular schools and other areas of educational practice. The International Network of Productive Schools (INEPS) with members in the European Union countries Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, Great Britain, Portugal and Spain as well as in Hungary and Russia, is especially important for the project. It is intended to implement exchanges involving educationalists and participants with the other member countries.

Second Area of Tasks: Project-oriented Further Education

The second area of innovative tasks for the educators involved in the project is their project-oriented further education. IPLE offers them a further education course accompanying the project. The course comprises a "correspondence course", a weekly seminar and international workshops. The educators deal with the study topics on the basis of the Institute's Study Letters. The most important themes of Productive Learning are treated in the texts both theoretically and using practical examples; practice-related tasks ensure that the knowledge acquired can be transferred to the project work. The themes of the Study Letters are discussed, complemented and extended in the seminars. A further seminar takes place for the 17 teachers to assist them in the tasks of accompanying pupils in the transition from school to work.

Institute for Productive Learning in Europe (IPLE)
iple@sonett.asfh-berlin.de

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