From September 2017 to February 2019 Slovak students from Levice Business Academy were working on a great ERASMUS + KA2 VET4SCAPE project together with their project partners from Austria, Portugal, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovenia and Bulgaria. They worked together to improve the level and quality of Business English and language learning, as well as to promote intercultural competence and their ability to work together in an international team. "Strategic partnerships" have made possible to improve the quality of economic education for all participating schools, as it relates to “Vocational Education for Skills, Competence and Practice for the Economy“.

All project objectives were achieved in three main areas and project orientations, which were also its core pillars. The first goal was to create Junior Achievement Companies and their mutual cooperation. In all seven countries involved, JA companies were established to work and trade and earn real money. E.g. Slovak JA companies “Unique“ and “Different“ have successfully established themselves in the international corporate field and have become leaders and a model of high-quality functioning for other newly established partner companies, since Business Academy in Levice has long-term experience with their operation. During the first two short-term training activities in Vidin, Bulgaria, and Barreiro in Portugal, the co-operation of JA firms gained clear contours. At the third final short-term training activity  in České Budějovice, the International Fair of JA Companies was held - a key activity of this pillar, where JA Companies´ products were offered and sold to participants from other countries, as well as students and teachers of the visiting Business Academy in České Budějovice. The fair was successful and almost all products and goods were sold. Finally, the students presented the labour market situation of their home country and compared it within  the European labour market.

Pillar 2 - Strengthening Business English competencies and eventual participation in the exam and the ability to obtain an LCCI certificate were also very well fulfilled. The source of the study was a jointly selected "Market Leader Intermediate" textbook. Students were together discussing topics Travel and Transport, Advertisement and Human resources. At every short- term training event they had 4 sample Business English lessons taught by teachers from 4 different countries. In addition, oral examinations were conducted by English teachers who gave the students an idea of ​​how the oral exam was performed under the LCCI certificate scheme

The third pillar - intercultural education - has played an important role throughout the international collaboration in the project. Students created a guide to cultural survival in their city, country, learning about aspects in partner cities and countries, and exchanged practical experiences with their peers, learning about cultural and national differences among participating countries, learning more about Christmas and other traditions of seven nations involved in the project.

In order to ensure quality and compare the level of acquired knowledge and skills, the pre-testing of the three pillars was carried out before all short-term training activities as well as testing at the end of training activitieswas done to evaluate the learning process throughout the project. It is an extremely important measure because it shows the progress of students as they learned during training activities. The project website - https://vet4scape.wixsite.com/erasmusplus - was created and the eTwinning platform served as a safe place to collect and share materials used in VET4SCAPE. Students from Slovakia and Romania were awarded National Quality Label Certificates for their work on the eTwinning platform and Slovak Business Academy students from Levice even won the 1st place in the national competition for the best Erasmus + project realized through the eTwinning platform in 2018.

The project was a great opportunity to collaborate, through the high quality European project Erasmus +, which provided students and their teachers with unique experiences, knowledge, skills, the opportunity to work together in student JA companies and the opportunity to meet new people, cities and mutual and common learning in 21. century in the European Union. You can see the final product – a film about the project on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FaxhufNvgM

Zuzana Mészárosová, coordinator of VET4SCAPE project at Businesss Academy Levice, Slovakia