Cooperation with principals is an extremely important part of the PoMP project – Fostering Entrepreneurship Skills in Schools. In a project supported by Norway Grants, the most important goal is to train teachers to mentor young people in entrepreneurship. But at the same time, the partners of the Primorski Technology Park, the Development Center of Novo Mesto, Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU, SAŠA Incubator, Technology Park Ljubljana and Science and Research Center Bistra Ptuj are aware that the support of principals is crucial.
That is why we prepared a two-day Think Tank workshop in Kozana in Goriška Brda, in which 20 principals of Slovenian primary and secondary schools tried to find a solution to the challenge they had set themselves, namely in the areas of staffing and motivation of employees in education. In the workshop led by Mr. Matej Golob from CorpoHub, the participants worked in teams. They started with research on the current situation in the problem they want to solve, continued with the conceptualization of the solution, and then the prototypes of the solutions were already tested with potential users. In the last part of the workshop, five teams of principals presented their solutions to a panel made up of members of partner organizations.
The PoMP project is a two-year project in which many activities will take place for principals, teachers, and students, such as the PoMP Academy for mentor training, entrepreneurial activities for pupils and students, which will be carried out together with project partners by qualified mentors, and the exchange of good practices with Norwegian partners. All these activities will help principals, mentors and schoolchildren develop a growth mindset and acquire entrepreneurship competences. However, since all acquired human capital eventually dissipates if we do not strengthen and use it, at the end of the project PoMP will also ensure the establishment of an online platform where teachers and mentors will be able to share and exchange their experiences and participate in activities even after the end of PoMP.