WE CAN TEACH SUCCESSFULLY. BUT CAN WE EQUALLY MANAGE OUR BUSINESS?

POU Vinkovci, Adult Education Institution takes part in a European KA2 ERASMUS+ program meant to introduce advanced business management principles in education

After a calm period of constant growth, our organisation faced stagnation created both by the changes in the business environment and the habits and expectations of our learners. Although proud of our high teaching quality and learning outcomes, we often failed to efficiently address the managerial issues and team communication behind the stage. 

In search of a way out,  we found inspiration in the LEARN&LEAD vision and the project built around it. The LEARN&LEAD concept is based on the stream of innovations generated over the last ten years in a number of international projects with a vision to create inspiring learning environments by improving the performance of individuals and organisations in the areas of strategic development, organisational management, leadership and quality of learning provision, internationalisation, equality and inclusion, thus offering a chocolate box suited to everyone's need and taste.

The first industry to undertake the desired transformation is to be a traditional language school. Traditional schools face a number of challenges which occur as a result of transformation and digitalization of economy and changing customer needs. On the one hand, the development of on-line language courses and platforms results in decreasing demand for traditional face-to-face language lectures and the appearance of on-line alternatives also results in increasing competition, which reflects in the decrease of price of the traditional language school service. On the other hand, the customer, who can now select different on-line product alternatives, doesn´t perceive the value of the customized face-to-face teaching. Such circumstances in nature jeopardise the long-term sustainability of traditional language school business model.

The project reflects the current changes in business environment and aims on development of new business model for business school, which is based on transformation of the product to the more value-adding form of language education which connects the language and professional education. Such transformation allows the language school to be not only the provider of the language education, but effectively connect it with professional education focused on business and personal development.

This is why we are quite convinced that the project should significantly contribute to the transformation of the traditional language school’s business into a new type of business model, which reflects the changes in business environment, customer requirements and challenges of the new digital era. Project outputs should contribute to the development and boosting of the language school business and bring an entirely new level of customer experience in language schools. We might just be at the end of our quest for the Holy Grail after all.

The managerial development of Learn&Lead is going to be elaborated in the partnership led by the team representing UNIVERZITA TOMASE BATI VE ZLINE, the Czech Republic.

The project partners are

• HARMONY ACADEMY s.r.o., Slovakia, 
• PLUS Academia spol. s r.o., Slovakia, 
• Pucko otvoreno uciliste Vinkovci, Croatia, 
• BIEDRIBA EUROFORTIS, Latvia,
• Centrum Edukacyjne Feniks, sp. z o. o, Poland

Coordinator:                 

• UNIVERZITA TOMASE BATI VE ZLINE, Czech republic

Project details

Project number:          2020-1-CZ01-KA203-078478

Project period:            October 2020 – September 2022

Funded by:                 Dúm zahraničný spolupráce, Czech republic

Program:                    Erasmus+, KA2