Abstract:

The Council of the European Union adopted a Recommendation on key competences for lifelong learning. Eight key competences essential to citizens for personal fulfilment, a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, employability, active citizenship and social inclusion are identified (European Union, 2018). This paper will take a look at students’ voluntary participation in extracurricular activities that are connected to students’ civic engagement and helps to develop most of the listed competences. More deeply are examined 3 activities: hands-on business development programme STARTER, Welcome Centre, which provides services to newcomers and Futulab, which offers project-based internship options for students.

There are several extracurricular activities available for students at University of Tartu. One is semester-long extra-curriculum programme STARTER financed by ESF programme “Systematic development of entrepreneurship and career education at all levels of education” consists of workshops that guide teams from ideation to business model with the aim to find solutions to the needs that have arisen in society. Many projects deal with real problems in community which well correspond to the Agenda for Sustainable Development where is stated that sustainable urban development and management are crucial to the quality of life of our people (European Union, 2019). Another example is Tartu Welcome Centre which provides services for newcomers in Tartu and South-Estonia area which are free consultations, registry services, cultural and networking events, and useful information. Both cases are described in Guide to Digital Civic Engagement (Student DCE project, 2021). Third is Futulab, where students can participate in the project-based internship as a team member and/or as a project idea author. This gives to student an experience of a real working environment and the opportunity to acquire new skills and practical experience in addition to theoretical knowledge.

Nine qualitative interviews will be analysed to find out why the programme was launched, what motivates students to participate in extracurricular activities, civic engagement and internship projects, how the digital tools can support students learning as well as what are the benefits for students, university and community. These results will support achieving strategical goals set in Estonian Education Development Plan 2021-2035 to implement more practical learning (e.g. problem-based and project-based learning) to make learning tasks more meaningful and to develop the ability to solve the challenges of personal life, teaching, the local community or society in a creative, collaborative and innovative way (Ministry of Education, 2020).

References:
[1] European Union, Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/297a33c8-a1f3-11e9-9d01-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
[2] United Nations, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, https://sdgs.un.org/2030agenda
[3] Student DCE project, Guide to Digital Civic Engagement, https://www.studentcivicengagers.eu/guide-to-digital-civic-engagement-en/
[4] Ministry of Education, Eesti haridusvaldkonna arengukava 2035 https://www.hm.ee/sites/default/files/haridusvaldkonna_arengukava_2035_27okt.pdf

Keywords:

Extracurricular activities, Skills development, SDG, Problem-based learning.