The PEAL project was born in Spring 2016. It came from an idea, that Tradium Business Department (EfVET Member) as a school needed to get up to speed concerning e-commerce. We realized, that the webshops around the country needed skilled employees, who understood all the differences between physical shops and webshops.

Tradium (Denmark)

The PEAL project came to the end. After the 2 years, partners sent 50 students and 20 teachers out to various locations throughout Europe to learn more about e-commerce. The six partner schools from Siauliai in Lithuania, Groningen and Da Vinci from the Netherlands, Bridgewater&Taunton from Great Britain, Stucom from Spain and Tradium from Denmark came together to form a project for their students and their teachers.

Partners aimed to give the students a lifetime experience working in a foreign country with a real company, including a real problem within e-commerce.

PEAL started by partners selecting the students to participate in the project. The students filed an application explaining why they wanted to join and why the schools should select them. For some of them, this was their first time outside their own country and for others it was even their first time travelling on their own. The age range was from around 18 to 40 years old.  Before leaving their home country, the students were taught via online training about the local work culture and some of the polite phrases in the local language.

50 students out to five were sent abroad from the partner schools. In their new destination, they worked with local companies for two weeks. The companies appreciate the inclusion of young enthusiastic eyes and minds to take a look at different issues. On all five mobilities, the students worked hard and in the process got support from the local teachers. Thanks to this opportunity students could share good points and experiences.

The companies also went through a selection. Some of them were working with the schools already and others were found through local networking. They were all having issues regarding e-commerce. These issues vary from having no webshop at all to having a non-functioning webshop. The companies welcomed the students to their premises. A few of the companies were actually local charities and local NGO’s. Finally, the evaluations from the companies showed great enthusiasm with the students and their findings.

At each mobility, the school sent one teacher to accompany the two students to the foreign country. The teachers exchanged best practices and visited the companies.

The teachers spent three days on each mobility. The last day of the visit was spent creating new teaching materials within the subject of e-commerce. These materials are now uploaded to a website, where all the partner schools can pick and choose between the 25 issues from the companies and the six chapters of teaching material.