CONCLUSIONS ON EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS

Similarities and differences in educational systems  differences lie in secondary education  more developed secondary sytems in Germany, Austria and Finland  rather general secondary education in Poland, Greece and Spain

Innovation related contents In particular regions participating in the project Y4I there are different experiences in implementing innovation related contents into educational systems at particular levels. There are considerable discrepancies between secondary and higher education as well as between particular regions. In the majority of regions higher education is characterized by fewer innovation-oriented curricula than secondary education. In more developed countries innovative solutions are applied more frequently.

a)secondary education  Weser-Ems experienced in realizing the INSTI project  majority of the regions do not include innovations in the official curricula  optional courses and contests connected with innovation are organized in each region e.g. „Competition for Intership” in Lublin region or „Information Technology Industrial Certificate” in Austria.  Elements of innovation related contents are included in the curricula of economy and basics of entrepreneurship courses

 there are also various optional courses which enable learning new technologies and modern solutions applied in enterprises (usually in vocational secondary and higher education - for example the ISTOS project developed in the University of Aegan)  common for almost all the regions is organizing vocational training for secondary schools students  e-learning is becoming more and more popular and examples of this form of teaching are in particular in Austria and Finland

b)higher education  innovation is taught through incorporation into other courses such as management, elements of economics and others  exception is the Andalusia region where there are courses closely related to innovation e.g. „Innovation and transformation management” „Innovative management”

Cross-border cooperation  Cooperation between border regions of Germany, Holland and Austria is most advanced and may be a good example to follow  Cooperation between countries of former Soviet Union is developing practically only at the level of universities (very little share of innovation related issues in cooperation)  Mediterranean Basin countries cooperation involves higher education institutions (innovation related issues do not constitute any significant point in these relations)

What do we propose: to enable diffusion of innovations into educational systems of the countries/regions participating in the project, in which innovation is insufficient. to use the experience of Germany, Holland and Austria in cross-border cooperation as a pattern for innovation related cooperation between other regions (EU – non EU regions)