Aims of the Project
  The Leonardo project SPES-NET is a dissemination project of the Post-16 Education Strategies project, carried out in 1996-1997 under the coordination of Dr Johanna Lasonen, who also originally launched the SPES-NET project. The project, funded by the European Commission, the Finnish Ministry of Education and the project partners, will run from 8 December 1997 to 7 April 2000. The partnership brings together 14 institutions from all over Europe.
  The aim of the SPES-NET project is to disseminate the findings of the Post-16 Strategies project at both national and international level. In addition, a central aim of the current project is to improve the status of vocational education in different European countries by means of a range of reform strategies. An important challenge to its dissemination activities is how to link learning in work placements with learning in educational settings.
  Methods
  The Post-16 Strategies project was chiefly concerned with the four post-16 education strategies (vocational enhancement, mutual enrichment, linkages and unification) identified by it and by the school reform schemes connected with them. The four strategies for promoting parity of esteem between vocational and academic/general education were seen as tools for analysing the differences and similarities between the reform approaches adopted in the eight European countries involved (Lasonen, 1996; Lasonen 1999; Lasonen & Young, 1998).
  The question facing the SPES-NET project has been if the four post-16 education strategies are still relevant to the new partners. The challenge is reassessing the strategies adopted in and classifying the educational systems of the partner countries, systems that represent different parts of Europe and stem from different processes of political and educational history.
  Outcomes
  An analysis of the new partners'reforms indicated that it is not easy to classify their educational systems in terms of the four post-16 education strategies. Such an analysis is particularly difficult in those countries which are undergoing structural and political changes, such as Estonia and Hungary, and in countries like Estonia and Greece, where vocational secondary education is not well developed (Stenström, 1999).
  A further analysis and the experience of the new partners have made it clear that the project must define reform strategies in a more precise manner, distinguishing between the different sub-strategies that might involve different implications for improving vocational education.