Change competence as a basic skill is needed in a world in constant change, and it’s crucial to create economic growth in the future. It is a problem in today’s society that the schools do not give their students enough of these skills. There is therefore a need to give young people the skill of change competence. This is a very relevant problem in Norway and Sweden and it will be crucial to create economic growth in the future that we are adressing this challenge. We are a part of a common labor- and business market, and young people need education that meets the demands of the future. 

Enterprise in education consists of three elements. It’s about developing personal properties and attitudes like the ability and willingness to take initiative, innovation and creativity, risk determination, confidence, team work ability and social skills. It’s also about learning subjects and basic skills using methods of enterprise. The third element is to learn knowledge and skills for business development and innovation process. Trough enterprise in education the children and the young people will obtain more change competence. In Norway and in Sweden entrepreneurship in education is a stated priority on government level, but this is not followed through enough. In both of our countries we see that especially enterprise in education is poorly anchored in the teacher education and in the vocational education programs in high schools/colleges. The teacher education leads to that the future teachers go out in to the workplace without the skills that we see is important to give young people change competence. When it comes to the vocational education programs the methods of enterprise exists to a small extent. We are experiencing a significant drop out rate in both countries, and measures have to be done.

In this project we want to develop, test and evaluate models that in the short and long term increase the change competence for young people. In the work of developing models we would like to test different programs and classes for the students that will be a part of the models and that gives longtime effects as well as they becomes a part of the models and in each students change expertise. We also wish to spread our models within our countries. The work we aim to do in this project is not within the ordinary course of business, and will not be possible to put into action without the support of the ÖKS program.

In our countries there are common targets at national level when it comes to focusing on enterprise. This is also a priority in the EU, and EU has defined enterprise as a basic skill. EU and the Nordic countries are welded together with a common labor market and economy which are depended on each other. It is a paradox that our education systems are different and that there is little cooperation across the borders. Through education, we have a unique opportunity to see the opportunities that exist globally, and in our countries we will lose in the competition globally if we don’t take advantage of this opportunity. Cooperation across our countries is necessary to give the young ones the necessary change competence with an understanding for our global world to promote economic growth.

A premise for the students to gain this understanding of the global world is that their teachers got this understanding. Therefore we would like in this project to work across borders in order to develop different models and will thereby make models that we share and develop across borders while showing the teachers how cooperation across borders can be done for mutual benefits. We also see that providing cooperation across borders will be motivating for the teachers we invite into the project. One of the challenges in creating the changes needed in teachers practice to put the models into life, is the teachers own resistance related to the change, and precipitation in a border-wide project will provide the necessary motivation.

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