Jump@School

Work and Equal Opportunities

Jump@School

Social experimentation aiming at preventing early school leaving (ESL)

Early school leaving (ESL) is a serious problem that not only affects an individual but the society as a whole. Although the situation of ESL in the individual EU Member States is relatively different, they follow common patterns. The EU has set the target of reducing early school leaving rates to less than 10% by 2020. Subsequently, the main aim of the Jump@School project was to successfully develop and experimentally test a new innovative intervention to prevent early school leaving. This intervention was then tested in different countries and cities with the aim of seeing the effects of different contexts on the results of the experiment. Based on various dissemination strategies, the results of the experiment and of the project as a whole were made available to relevant actors particularly in the countries involved in the project (Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and Turkey) but also, especially through its exploitation strategy, the results reached a much wider audience (at least EU-wide). This means these results were able to inform policy thus possibly supporting the achievement of the EU 2020 education strategy of reducing the early school leaving rates.

During the initial phases of the project, existing well-functioning European practices were analysed and compared. This finally led to the selection and creation of a new intervention that was then implemented in schools in Italy, Spain and Turkey. To measure the direct impact of the intervention on dropout, this intervention was scientifically accompanied and evaluated by the Centre for Social Innovation (ZSI) from the onset. The implementation of this intervention followed a social experimental design.