Euroscola 2014

EUROSCOLA 2014 / 2015 COMPETITION

WORKING TOGETHER FOR EUROPE’S YOUNG PEOPLE

“COSTACHE NEGRUZZI” HIGH SCHOOL OF IAŞI

 

Inspired by the truth of Euripides’ words – “The power of the young resides in their action” (Rhesus) – and aware of the fact that the future of the economic and political construction called The European Union belongs to this population segment, the young, the legislative initiative proposed for the EUROSCOLA 2014/2015 competition, the 7th edition, arouse our interest.

Since this initiative involves not only our status as European citizens, but also problems that sooner or later will directly affect us, considering the fact that we all seek a successful career within the European Union, our project started from the premise of supporting the young to become responsible adults and, above all, able to overcome their limits. The fact that we are European citizens represents both an advantage and a responsibility. The European Union is no longer a mere concept, but the area of unity in diversity, completing our development.

We set, through our activities, some important objectives for this journey towards knowledge and progress, at an age when teenagers form new principles and adopt values to guide their entire existence. Therefore, we decided: 1) to inform the young about the European institutions and the role of the European Parliament in the decision-making process of the European Union; 2) to inform and stimulate the young regarding the importance of participating in the election of the representatives of the European Parliament; 3) to set responsibilities for the target group by assuming different roles within the European Parliament and by complex activities of raising awareness on the importance of this institution; 4) to develop the students’ communication skills, team work, and leadership; 5) to assume the status of European citizens and, why not, that of a possible future representative in the European Parliament by making a video footage in which to simulate the plenary presentation of the report on the legislative initiative, the debate (with three motions) and the final vote.

Who are we?  The EUROSCOLA 2014 team from “Costache Negruzzi” High School, Iasi, is formed of 24 feverishly animated by the European spirit students, who are eager to learn and be involved in civic activities, taking into account that the recent reconfiguration of the European Parliament, as a result of the elections in May, has caught their attention upon the responsibility they will have in order to elect their own representatives in five years’ time. Since their enthusiasm was not singular in our school, the participants have been selected upon an internal competition of application files and interviews, to make the most of their previous experience in volunteering projects and their abilities to adapt to novelty, initiative and, mainly, their creativity.

The stages of the legislative initiative, considering the requirements of this year’s competition, proved to be a real challenge. Taking place between 5th June and 7th October 2014, these important stages led to reaching the objectives previously set and, more importantly, shaped a united team willing to be successful.

During the first stage, we had work meetings to define the structure and the aims of the project, we designed the activities to be carried out, realizing from the very beginning that a parliamentary debate, although a mock one, involves not only spontaneity, but also intensive research. Therefore, our project began with the study and the analysis of the legislative initiative, of the structure and the members of the European Parliament, as well as the research on specific procedures of discussing and adopting a resolution. Moreover, by assuming the roles of MEPs, the team’s members became aware of the responsibility the politicians bear in order to listen to and act according to the opinions and the problems of the people they represent. Consequently, we established the management strategy and analyzed the possibility of discussing the legislative initiative with as many social actors (in)directly affected by the issue of unemployment as we could. The identity elements of the team were also established during this first stage, the students designing the project’s insignia, a symbol of our school’s integration in the European dimension (by combining letters L and I, the Romanian equivalent for “boarding-school”, with the 12 stars of the European flag). In addition, we created a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/euroscola2014) and started the work on the project’s website, conceived and printed the informative materials necessary for different activities during the project (questionnaires, flyers, brochures, power point presentations). We structured the activities prior to the debate according to the premise of the direct contact with the young people (primarily), but also with the potential employers and the authorities in charge of finding at least partial solutions to this problem.

In order to follow the first line of action – the direct contact with the young –, we applied 100 questionnaires to the senior high school students in “Costache Negruzzi”, aiming to assess the extent to which they are aware of the opportunities offered by the European Union and the way they relate to those. Also, we organized two workshops with institutions in our county (RoTalent Association and the Technological High School of Tătăruşi), having as target groups teenagers in prospect of becoming employees. Within these workshops we presented the role of the European institutions in the decision-making process, we discussed the problems young people are dealing with when looking for a job and, last but not least, we looked for solutions. The collaboration with the above mentioned institutions meant direct contact with two important categories of teenagers: on one hand, the high achievers (the IQ club within the RoTalent Association reunites national and international Olympic participants in our county) and, on the other hand, those from the rural area (the Technological High School of Tătăruşi), identifying problems specific to each category.

We also approached a significant number of young people in the city of Iasi by distributing flyers and brochures created by the members of our team, in an informative campaign trying to grasp their opinion and  discuss solutions for the unemployment crisis among the youngsters. By street interviews we checked the community pulse, seeking to accumulate the necessary amount of information for the debate of the legislative initiative, but also to initiate the students in certain communication and interpersonal relation techniques.

Our students also took part in the Job Fair for Graduates organized by A.J.O.F.M. (the County Agency for Employment) on 26th September, when they had the opportunity to talk to a different category of young people, the graduates who were either looking for a job or just prospecting the offer. This experience revealed, once more, the fact that young people show availability and interest towards novelty and seek successful careers.

            Together with these activities focused on the category primarily affected by unemployment, the young people, we tried to approach the issue from the employers’ perspective as well. In addition to the presentation of the legislative initiative to be debated, our intentions were to find, on one side, the advantages that turn the young job candidates into employees and, on the other side, the conditions which could be improved in order to facilitate access to the jobs offered by important companies and SMEs. Hence, we interviewed several employers in the county of Iasi, at their headquarters (The Newspaper of Iasi, Darif Group, etc.) as well as at the Job Fair for Graduates mentioned above (OTP Bank, Xerox, etc.). The discussions with the employers reflected the fact that they are also preoccupied with the lack of jobs for the young and that they are searching for solutions for the latter to have access on the labor market. What is more, this represented great opportunities for the members of our team to approach the legislative initiative from a different perspective, overcoming the barriers of their age and understanding the fact that unemployment is the result of a combination of several social and economic factors. 

Since our project focused on the debate of the legislative initiative, but also on finding solutions for the issue of unemployment among the young, we addressed the subject from the point of view of those directly responsible for implementing the recommendations for Romania, authorities whose actions could make the means of gaining access to more job offers even more efficient. Therefore, the interview with School Chief Inspector Ph.D. Camelia Gavrilă helped the members of our team to better understand how the Romanian system of education is aligned to the European tendencies. Moreover, it also revealed the measures that have already been taken to facilitate the acquisition of skills according to the requirements of the labor market, as well as a better integration of the young in the European working environment. The interview was substantial, besides addressing elements of managerial competence in the field of education, reflecting the authorities’ concern to encourage the development of the young people. On a side note, throughout our project we received constant support from the County School Inspectorate in promoting European values and the educational initiatives associated to them.

The experience of meeting with the School Chief Inspector was complemented by the dialogue with Ms. Adriana Sîrghie, spokeswoman of the County Agency of Employment, who offered us a pragmatic vision of the situation of youth unemployment on local, national and European levels. By representing an institution directly involved in managing the situation of the young graduates as potential employees, Ms. Sîrghie emphasized the fact that the legislative initiative Working Together for Europe’s Young People is already a priority in Romania, as reflected by the numerous ongoing programs. Consequently, the dialogues with the authorities familiarized the team with the rigors of official work meetings, all the while laying the grounds for them to even better assume the roles within the plenary sitting.

After this integrative endeavor to study the legislative initiative and posing it for public debate, the members of the team were ready for the plenary sitting on the problems they had previously encountered. Beyond the organizational side, which they had studied by lecturing the materials available on the website of the European Parliament as well as by watching video footages of plenary sittings, assuming the roles posed a problem of personal vision as well. Before actually debating the legislative initiative, the students reunited in the Commission for Employment to write the report. This was meant to inform the Parliament on the Commission’s proposal and to call their attention on the immediate measures to be taken in the European Union in order to decrease the unemployment percentage among the young. Fundamenting the report was done according to the legislative initiative, the Commission elaborating a text summing up the detailed preoccupations within. The Commissioner’s task was to present the argumentation in the plenary sitting and to respond to the motions of the members of the Parliament.

Simultaneous to the meetings of the Commission, the members of the political groups of the Parliament reanalyzed the legislative proposal taking into account the arguments provided by the interlocutors they had got in contact with throughout the previously mentioned activities. As a result, the members were organized in three groups corresponding to the groups in the European Parliament with the highest percentage of representatives (S&D, PPE, ECR). Without ignoring the extended political structure of the European Parliament, we chose the three groups as being representative for the visions expressed in the three motions (according to the requirements of the EUROSCOLA competition).

The first motion approached a social perspective, raising, on one hand, the issue of adapting the school curricula to both regional and European necessities and, on the other hand, suggesting a detailed approach to the adjacent problems of youth unemployment (aging of active population, massive migration of labor force and the “brain drain” phenomenon). The second motion focused on the financial/economic field from a center-right perspective, meant to underline the fact that economy is the one essentially contributing to the foundation of job offers and reducing unemployment rates. Referring to the particular case of Romania, the PPE representative suggested a reconfiguration of the legislation in order to encourage the maintenance of the young in permanent posts, not only in temporary jobs. The third motion expressed the discontent of the young people regarding two major aspects, constantly brought up in the discussions with this age category. The representative of  ECR emphasized, on one hand, the insufficiency of European vocational and career counseling programs and, on the other hand, the lack of concrete details in the legislative proposal regarding the encouragement of entrepreneurship among the young. Since the blue card procedure drew our team’s attention while researching before the plenary sitting and was considered very efficient, a question was raised during this last motion, precisely to reflect the fact that the arguments had not been fully sustained. The deliberate fervor of the Reformists’ representative was meant to reflect the diversity of opinions that makes the European Parliament a space of debate and freedom of speech.

The Commissioner’s answer to these motions represented the climax of the plenary sitting since it required not only skills to synthesize apparently divergent opinions but, more importantly, the use of efficient communication strategies in order to convince the auditory that even though the unemployment issue is a complex one, it cannot be dealt with unless in successive stages and supported by regional and European initiatives. As a result, if the motions had focused on aspects identified as problematic, the Commissioner’s response was meant as a coherent presentation of the reasons why these motions do not change the content of the legislative proposal. The arguments were based not only on significant information but also on a series of special discursive techniques to convince the auditory of the legitimacy of the Commission’s proposal.

Beside the coherence and cohesion required by this type of discourse, the techniques deliberately used in the Commissioner’s response were the following: a) relating a particular case to a general statement (supposedly admitted by the auditory: paragraph 3, in which it is said that the Country Specific Recommendations also include the cases mentioned in the motion); b) the argument of authority (paragraph 4, in which the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European legislation are invoked in order to admit the fact that the free circulation of people should be supported); c) the a fortiori argument (paragraph 5, in which it is shown that since a certain idea is accepted, the auditory should support the adjacent one as well); d) concession (paragraph 6, in which the apparent existence of a disadvantage in the fact that there are countries which do not offer enough conditions to gain competences is admitted but it is strongly supported that the European Union must take concrete measures in educational reforms); e) invoking parallel examples (paragraphs 7 and 8, mentioning already existing programs that contribute to the decrease in the unemployment rate and making the measures efficient); f) eliminate the alternatives to the proposed thesis technique (paragraph 9, in which it is stated that the purpose of the report was not to make the issue of unemployment absolute nor to be ignored by the Member States, but to support and improve the employability for the young).

Following the procedure from the Rules of Procedure, at the end of the plenary sitting, the team members simulated the nominal vote (electronically) on the legislative proposal, making written explanations of vote according to the roles assumed. Since throughout the project and mainly within the context of in-depth research of the issue of youth unemployment and the solutions proposed within the Call to Action on Youth Unemployment (COM/2013/0447 final), the team members became aware of the importance of the measures and the necessity of implementing them, the legislative proposal was adopted with a majority of votes (17 pro, 5 against and 2 abstentions).

The project’s echoes

Our school’s initiative to enter this competition generated an awareness of the importance the European institutions have as well as an enriching debate on youth unemployment. The number of direct and indirect beneficiaries of the project was considerably high (over 1000 people), taking into consideration the number of participants in our activities and the mass-media impact, the project being promoted in the local media (TVR, Radio Iasi, The Newspaper of Iasi, Impact FM), online, on Facebook (with over 500 likes) and on the project website – http://colegiulnegruzzi.wix.com/euroscola.

As any successful initiative, the project Working Together for Europe’s Young People developed by the team from “Costache Negruzzi” High School of Iasi was an opportunity to learn and be creative. We got closer to the European institutions and the values they promote, we studied the procedures and mechanisms in depth, underlying the European democracy and became, once more, aware of the fact that each of us can contribute to solving the problems the European Union is dealing with . As the students declared, the project offered them the chance to discover in themselves skills and values of true European citizens.