The EDDI (Early Digital Diagnosis and Intervention) project aims to help teachers, families and students to better understand the causes and consequences of leaving education early. In turn this will help find possible solutions to the problem of Early School Leaving (ESL). Currently we are building a catologue with policy documents and good practices on Early School Leaving (ESL), a platform and an App.

Dutch Catologue on ESL

One of the articles which will be in the EDDI Catologue is the one about the significant reduction of Dutch Dropouts in VET: The number of students having successfully finished their VET course has risen to almost 84%, concluded the Inspectorate of Education in its 2019 report on the State of Education in the Netherlands. What more can be done to reduce the share of drop-outs even further, now since more than a decade a great number of policy instruments has already been applied?

In search of innovative methods the Ministry of Education allowed VET schools to experiment with homemade interventions. Subsidies were granted to three VET-schools under the condition of participating in an evaluation of the effectiveness of the instrument of choice. One VET school improved the intake procedure for prospective students under the assumption that the risk of dropout will be reduced by a careful match between the student’s expectations and competences and a study program. Another VET school introduced stricter policies in the event of a student’s unauthorized absence, as absence often precedes early school leaving. And the third encouraged parental involvement in the education of their children through the use of e-coaching for parents.

The aim of the EDDI Project is to prevent ESL in the partner countires and in the EU as a whole.

Objectives of the EDDI Project

The objectives of the EDDI Project are:

• Provide practical ideas and new strategies for classroom interventions
• Raise students’ motivation to learn
• Improve competences linked to the teachers’ professional profiles
• Provide teachers with a resource of ready- to-use materials to prevent ESL
• Involve students, families, health and social agencies
• Improve students’ and teachers’ knowledge and competences in English and ICT
• Promote social integration at school

EDDI Platform & App

One of the main outcomes of the project is the EDDI platform, which will provide an online space for teachers to develop a wide European network for institutions, teachers, trainers, students and parents to
share and exchange tips and suggestions in regards to fighting ESL. The EDDI app will be complimentary to the platform.

The project “Early Digital Diagnosis and Intervention(EDDI)” aims to improve student retention rates. On 13-14 October we officially held our 3rd Transnational EDDI project meeting by a digital Teams meeting. The problem of early school leaving (ESL) affects societies, economies and higher education as underscored by UNESCO, Sustainable Development Goals (2019). With schools struggling with a significant number of students who give up on education before finishing secondary school, the aim of the EDDI consortium is to find a way to keep students in education.

EDDI e-Platform

After the feasibility study carried out in the project partner countries, the factors causing early school leaving were determined and effective strategies were determined. Currently the partners are developing content for the EDDI Platform. 4 models, with units and tools are in development. Read more about the EDDI Platform here. The initial testing of the platform will be done during Mobility in February 15-18th in Tahiti with help of local focus groups.

EDDI Catalogue

The EDDI catologue, c.q. Guide will consist of the contents below:
-Description of the methodology of the good practice about pedagogical model and the role of ICT in teaching to prevent early drop out
-Implementation stages of using the e-learning training programmes addressing the issue of classroom diversity used both in formal and non-formal education and using the adapted materials to an innovative system of teaching
-Evaluation of the ongoing quality improvement process, indicator monitoring and ongoing data collected and reviewed. Structure,process and outcome, evaluation relevant to early drop out.
-Strengths and weaknesses of the good practices by means of adaptation and implementation
-Sustainability strategy will comprise a summary of the courses developed during the project.

EDDI Android Application

The EDDI android application will create a typical environment that can be exploited by teachers, administrative staff to reach any possible signs of ESL. The application will have a flexible structure. In our next article we will tell you more about ÉDDI App Work in Progress: Click here

Training Mobility Tahiti

The Learning Mobilities in Tahiti will take place 15-18 February 2022. The 4-day Learning, Teaching, Training activity will include:

– Informative seminars to be conducted by the experts from Universities and successful enterprises from the host country and also by the experts from the other partner countries joining via interactive tools like skype, zoom etc.

– Role-plays that represent the NEET youngsters and the employers to give a message to possible drop-outs about the situation of the real world in case of leaving their schools. Those scenarios and role-plays would be distributed and watched by all stakeholder partner schools in participating countries that is about 1000 of schools in total.

– An overall discussion and future plans to be made on the last day of the training.

– at least 2 teachers/experts/trainers per partner will participate in the training.

– The results of the training will be published and broadcasted by all the partners via videos on Youtube, Website of the project, booklets, brochures, and the local media of the partner countries.

Early school leaving (ESL) is a serious matter at individual and macro level since it is connected to unemployment, social exclusion, and poverty… Some more EDDI facts

Did you know that…?

• ‘Early school leaving is linked to unemployment, social exclusion, poverty and poor health.’: There are many reasons why some young people give up education and training prematurely: personal or family problems, learning difficulties, or a fragile socio-economic situation.’
• Besides economic and social mobility impacts, early school leaving has been linked to bullying, violence or micro criminality.
• Early School Leaving is a threat to the successful future development of the workforce and community prospects.
• In 2019, the share of children living in a household at risk of poverty or social exclusion in the EU ranged from 11.7 % in Slovenia to 33.9 % in Bulgaria and 35.8 % in Romania; the average for the EU was 22.5 %.