The project “Vocational education - a chance for a better tomorrow” has been launched by Stanisław Konarski Vocational Secondary School in Jędrzejów in cooperation with a partner , WBS TRAINING AG. The participants of the project are 60 students of our school who are training to become specialists in the areas of hotel and catering, economics, IT and logistics. The students of our school are aged 16-21, 60% of them are female and 40% male. 80% of our students come from rural areas. Most of them are brought up in families with a rather poor financial situation where their parents are either unemployed or run small low-income farms. The situation of the students living in small towns has also got worse recently as many of their parenst lost their jobs or were made to work part-time due to economic crisis. Our students find it difficult to access modern technologies and to take full advantage of the school’s educational offer. Even though they are bright, they often have very low self-esteem, they cannot challenge the common stereotype of a former pupil of a small-town school and plan their career in accordance with their interests and dreams. Furthermore, most of our students have not had any chance to travel abroad because of their difficult financial situation. The aims of our project are: - raising the level of education and helping students gain new qualifications needed for their future career development; - helping students gain knowledge about innovations used in the respective trade they are training for; - improving flexibility and chances of employment on the local, national and European market; - promoting knowledge of foreign languages; - helping students to improve their command of vocational language; - promoting knowledge of other cultures; - promoting openess and respect for other cultures; - giveing students an opportunity to learn various aspects of work in different cultural and language environment; - helping students to learn to work in culturally and lingustically diverse teams; - training highly qualified staff for hotel and catering, economics, IT and logistics industries; The project would in may ways meet the needs of our students, our school as well as our district, region and country: - Thanks to their participation in this projects the students will get the right professional qualifications, knowledge and skills enabling them to start working in major businesses and institutions in hotel and catering, economics, IT and logistics industries. - This project adresses the needs of the district and the country as it prepares our students to be valuable potential employees whose international experience would benefit both foreign and local employers. An opportunity to get acquainted with modern technologies and solutions and transfer of their experience gained during the project will promote these solutions in Poland, that in turn would help to develop our hotel and catering, economics, IT and logistics sectors. Participating in the project will have a direct influence on the quality of apprenticeship offered in Poland as the companies offering student training will have to keep it to a high standard. - The project answers the needs of our school as we are working to improve the standard of education and promote positive image of the school. Participating in this project will make our school more competitive in comparison with other vocational schools in the region and as a result will attract more students in the future. Our school has been constantly searching for new ways of improving its offer of apprenticeship to our students. We would also like to make more international contacts for our school. - This project would meet the needs of our students who want to gain interesting professional experience, improve their qualifications and have an opportunity to practice their languages effectively and for free. Thanks to this project students will be more flexible and more successful on the job market. Students who come from rural areas or small towns really need such opportunities to become more independent, build their confidence and evaluate their communication, social and professional skills.