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A pioneering learning hub where VET students operate real businesses, serve real customers and build the skills, confidence and connections that classrooms alone can’t provide.
What if the best way to prepare young people for the world of work was simply to let them work? In a repurposed former dance hall on a busy street in Leuven, Belgium, that idea has become a reality. Campus Corso is not a school project or a simulation – it’s a community hub where vocational students run actual businesses, serve genuine clients and confront the kind of unpredictable, real-world challenges that no textbook can replicate. Students from hairdressing, tourism, catering and hospitality pathways share the space with tutors, local entrepreneurs and professionals, creating a place where generations can genuinely learn from each other. And the real innovation? Trackngrow, the self-developed online formative assessment tool that captures each student's growth in a way that traditional grading simply can't.
Campus Corso sits at the heart of the Leuven Learning Ecosystem (LLES), a city-wide network of community organisations, cultural venues and educational institutions united by a shared belief that learning belongs to everyone and happens everywhere. By immersing students in real work situations, the project simultaneously develops the entrepreneurial, digital, and social and civic competences that employers need and that young people need to thrive.
"Thanks to working here, I discovered talents I didn't even know I had. Look at me - serving coffee and preparing bagels for customers, When I started here, I didn't even dare speak to people I didn't know." Kyana Vanherwegen, dual VET learner, Campus Corso
Read on to find out why this initiative was selected as one of the nine finalists of the New Learning Award 2026.
The project
Across Europe, vocational education and training (VET) often struggles to provide students with the practical confidence or real-world skills that employers actually need. Campus Corso was designed to close that gap, not by talking about work, but by doing it.
Campus Corso is a working community hub, operated by non-profit Edushakers, where students run real businesses with real consequences. Hairdressing students manage a professional salon open to the public three times a week. Tourism students provide genuine visitor information and city guidance services. Students with special educational needs run hospitality and catering operations for the wider community. Every appointment made, every customer served and every complaint handled is a learning moment that no classroom exercise can replicate.
Teachers work as facilitators and coaches rather than instructors, guided by the "tinkering" approach: investigate, connect, try, adjust, and try again. Professional mentors and entrepreneurs complement this, sharing industry expertise and introducing real-world perspectives into the learning environment. At the heart of this approach is Trackngrow, a self-developed online tool that sets Campus Corso apart. Rather than rely on traditional end-of-year assessments, Trackngrow continuously each student's development across technical skills, entrepreneurial behaviours and key digital and citizenship competences.
Campus Corso is part of a much bigger vision – the Leuven Learning Ecosystem (LLES), a city-wide network of creative maker-spaces, cultural venues, community organisations and educational institutions united by the belief that learning is lifelong and belongs to everyone. Within this ecosystem, Campus Corso is a "third space", where formal VET education, non-formal community learning, and informal everyday encounters all come together naturally.
Why this practice stands out
The ETF and its partners have selected this initiative as one of the nine finalists for the New Learning Award 2026. Here is why this learning practice stands out:
- Real work, not role play: VET students run actual businesses, creating a unique and authentic life experience. Many participants have gone on to launch their own ventures or secure employment through connections made at Campus Corso
- Innovative formative assessment: Trackngrow, Campus Corso's self-developed online tool, continuously tracks student progress across key competences, making individual growth both visible and meaningful throughout the learning journey
- Innovation and inclusion built in: From students with special educational needs to senior professionals and local entrepreneurs, Campus Corso brings together people who would rarely share a learning space. Up to 100 learners per year benefit from Campus Corso
- A cross-cutting model to scale: With documented methodologies, the innovative Tranckngrow competence tracking tool, and a replicable community-hub model, Campus Corso is an inspiration for similar initiatives across Europe and beyond.
"Our students have learned and strengthened more job-related soft skills at Campus Corso in four weeks than over a whole school year's timespace." Sofie Vervloet, Joblab Coordinator, Campus Redingenhof
The future
Campus Corso sits at the heart of Leuven’s growing learning ecosystem, demonstrating what becomes possible when education, community, entrepreneurship and culture come together around a shared physical space. It is a model that other cities and regions could – and should – adopt.
The ambition is to grow: reaching more VET students, welcoming more community partners and deepening the intergenerational connections that make Campus Corso so distinctive. The Trackngrow tool and learning methodologies have been developed with replication in mind, ready to be adapted by schools, community organisations and local authorities committed to reimagining learning spaces of the future. Above all, the goal is simple – to improve the journey from education to employment for every young person who walks through the door.
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- Back to: ETF New Learning Award 2026
- Learn more: Campus Corso
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