The share of young people between the ages of 20 and 34 years neither in employment nor in education and training in 2016 stood at 12.4% in DE; 21.3% in CY; 14.8% in UK; 18.5% in IE; 18.0% in PL; 15.0% in FI; 16.2% in CZ and 22.5% in HR. With a record number of NEETs following the financial and economic crisis, there have been concerns among policymakers that a whole generation of young people in the EU could remain out of the labour market for years to come. Research evidence suggests that young people can deal relatively well with short spells of unemployment. Long-term disengagement, however, is likely to have a scarring effect on future labour market participation as well as earnings over the life course and thus may lead to social exclusion for those affected. The primary objective of the project is to design and develop a bespoke challenge-based educational intervention aimed at re-engaging NEETs and supporting them to build skills and competences to assist their reintegration to education or employment. Partners will initially focus on building trust and confidence which may have been broken by past negative experiences and on addressing motivational deficits that act as barriers to engagement. Once NEETs are re-engaged the online escape room challenges will focus on the development of market oriented key competences. For the adult education professionals who will ultimately be charged with delivering and sustaining this new intervention partners are proposing a comprehensive in-service training programme to support them in using these new resources but also developing key skills to enable them create new challenges in the future.
The online escape room challenges will use an embedded learning approach to re-engage NEETs in education and training.

Resources will address the following 4 key competences:

• Digital competence
• Social and civic competence
• Sense of initiative and entrepreneurship
• Cultural awareness and expression

Resources will be developed at 4 different levels, 2 resources per competence per level resulting in a suite of 32 escape room exercises being produced. The different levels will ensure that learners can engage with the tools developed regardless of prior educational history and that a sustainable educational experience for learners is provided allowing them to build their skills by advancing through available levels.