Project

 

The project "Early Technical Education" is a transnational cooperative project, which was promoted by the European Union programme SOKRATES, Comenius 2,1. Our special thanks go to the European Union commission (Office for the Technical Support of SOKRATES, LEONARDO and YOUTH) in Brussels, that supported this project financially.

 

For the planning of this project all partners attended a preparatory meeting in Barcelona, which was promoted by the European Union program. There, fundamental aims and contents of the project were developed.

 

The training programmes for educational specialists at elementary and primary schools vary widely throughout Europe. In Germany, future nursery school teachers attend schools specialising in this field (“Fachschulen”). In most other European countries however, they attend colleges or universities.

Whereas children at the age of 3 to 6 years attend day care centres (“Kindertagesstätten”) in Germany and pre-school (“pre-escola”) in Portugal, they start primary school at the age of 4 in Spain (“primaria”) and 5 years in the Netherlands ("Basisschool"). In Spain this elementary level is part of the educational system and therefore an integral part school life.

 

In this project the college “Haagse Hogeschool” of Den Haag, the Universities of Barcelona and Lisbon, the educational schools of social pedagogy of the “Berufsbildende Schulen VII” in Braunschweig and the “Richard-von-Weizsäcker Berufskolleg” in Lüdinghausen worked together on the educational level. As partner from technology and economy VOLKSWAGEN Coaching GmbH co-designed this project.

 

In this area of tension of the different disciplines of education and technology, but also against the background of the different systems of education in the participating countries and the educational concepts resulting from these, we worked on transnational approaches towards a didactical conception as well as didactical materials concerning the area "early technical education" for children of 3 to 12 years.

 

The idea of Gender Mainstreaming was considered carefully. Both, in the basic theoretical considerations concerning first didactical conceptions, as also in the practical planning of projects or sets of activities we wanted to introduce technical-scientific phenomena in accordance with the principle of Gender Mainstreaming. The materials were selected considering this principle. The accomplished activities and projects were also evaluated taking Gender

Mainstreaming aspects into account, in order to sensitize nursery and primary school teachers in training and work for this topic.

 

Each project partner found large support for the production and mutual testing of the didactical materials in their respective region by co-operation partners in social-educational institutions and schools.

 

 

For Richard-von-Weizsäcker-Berufskolleg in Lüdinghausen, DE:

Please click here

 

 

For Berufsbildende Schulen VII, Braunschweig, DE

Please click here

 

For Haagse Hoogeschool, NL

 

For the development, production and testing of didactic materials and approaches for this project, the Haagse Hogeschool has been co-operating with the teachers and children from the following primary schools:

 

 

For Universidad de Barcelona, ES

CEIP LoLa Anglada

For Universidade de Lisboa, PT

Please click here

 

 

For Volkswagen Coaching, Wolfsburg, DE:

Support by a regional network of interested partners

 

 

 

Many thanks to all for your constructive work and commitment.