The increasingly pervasive digital transformation, exacerbated by the Covid-19 health emergency, has catapulted contemporary societies into a climate of continuous change, which therefore requires new forms of learning, based on the ability to solve problems, which strengthens young people’s entrepreneurship, critical thinking, creativity, skills needed to live and work in the 21st century society. To do this, the school needs to: – become a place of thought, study, innovation, a relevant context for the generation and dissemination of practices, culture, lifestyles and languages – implement cooperation between those who produce objects and those who produce knowledge – involve employers in the definition of study plans – enhance through training with teachers / for teachers, educational programs for students that can combine practical experience with formal learning – promote training based on skills development The design idea was born from a reflection, common to the partners, on: 1. the existence of a discrepancy between the entry requirements required by the labour market and the skills leaving the school system, which is increasingly emphasized by all the players involved in the learning process. In the Republic of North Macedonia, the 2021-2022 academic year will be the first in which a generation of VET students will need to find an internship in companies and this represents a major challenge for the system which has seen the complexity of implementation increase. new work-based learning mechanisms.

Furthermore, as also underlined by the Slovenian partners, the school system is facing organizational changes which are now accelerated also by the pandemic crisis, determined by the emerging professions, by the need to manage green skills and digital maturity skills. Design thinking has the potential to offer some answers because it focuses on thinking and not content. 2. the need to adapt school curricula also to promote academic success and increase the number of children who complete the entire cycle of studies. In this regard, both Italy and Spain are confronted with the problem of early school leaving and school segregation. Early school leaving in Spain occurs in 16.0% of young people, being the country with the highest rate in the European Union, with an average of 10.2%. This problem basically affects children, who represent 74% of students who drop out of studies, and immigrant students, who represent 32.5% of those who leave the education system (Ministry of Education of Spain, 2020). A better adaptation of the training offered to the needs of both the labour market and the situation of these young people could give them greater continuity in their training in vocational training. In terms of school segregation, in Spain, 9% of Spanish education centers have more than 50% of students who are disadvantaged for socio-economic reasons (Save the Children, 2018). This segregation takes place between public and private schools, but also between public centers themselves, causing the ghettoization of those schools that concentrate disadvantaged students. This problem affects academic performance, given the social determinism that exists in academic achievement.