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Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: Sep 30, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Brussels Free University College ? Ilya Prigogine has begun its Erasmus exchange pretty lately (2006 ? 2007), comparing to the existence of the Programme (1987) and the amount of work realised by our International Relations Office remains ambitious seeking the goal of developing an « international culture » among our institution. Our « institutional mobility project », acknowledged into the new Erasmus + framework, at a modest level, copes with the main goal?s seeking related to the improvement rate of student exchange, in priority, but also lecturers and administrative staff, in a lesser extent. Generally speaking, our marketing promotion related to these different population targets is to be understood in a broader and wider « internationalisation » process. The steady rise of exchange rates can be identified on the statistical level (slow but constant growth) but we also wish, as Higher Education institution promoting the principle of « pedagogical proximity », to maintain a quality follow ? up regarding both our outgoing and incoming students from the triple and official perspective of the three « stay steps » (Before / During / After). Our « mobility project » period (valid from June 2014 until September 2015) has enabled the departure of 36 students and 3 lecturers (one considered as administrative staff) via the Erasmus + mobility scheme. A substantial majority among them (65%) have taken the opportunity to live an SMS « academic stay » (which could partially include some placement because most of our Bachelor trainings are professionnally ? oriented and demand placement from the second Bachelor year) while the 35% remaining population has opted for a placement mobility (SMP), in all cases, during their last year of Bachelor, specialisation or Master training. Proportionally, while focusing on student destinations, we note a true success related to Spain as first exchange destination country for the academic stays (SMS), considering the fact 13 students out of 22 ? 60% of the participants, while Nordic and baltic countries arouse a growing interest among our students (three in Finland, two in Denmark, one in Sweden and one in Estonia). Let?s mention Germany and Turkey as other destinations considering one student for each place. The distribution of mobility places for « placement exchange » more vary to a majority of places in France (a bit less than 50% or 6 students out of 14) or another student experience in Luxemburg, for the french ? speaking projects. Let?s notice the minority of students concerned by Spain, two out of fourteen or about 15% of the mobilities, followed by other projects disseminated through Europe, including an interest regarding the training, between Portugal, Finland and Lithuania. A fast analysis of the results highlights the fact students do make a destination choice on a careful or confortable way from the language point of view as they realize a placement durin their last year of studies and in close link with their thesis. The Spain pick as frequent destination on the academic level shows a clear interest from students for culture and Spanish language, generally considered. Concerning the mobility impact, the academic / placement type of experience remains useful. It seems « academic stays » benefits remain pretty neglected by our teachers or administrative staff : it consists, first of all, in a period where the student is considered as absent of the local pedagogical activities and he?ll need to find back his study rythm once back from abroad. We could call it a kind of « pedagogical ethnocentrism », in other words. The impression appears pretty different regarding the placement added ? value as both students and teachers positively consider the Erasmus experience as it doesn?t impinge any real personalised coping with the local curriculum (the placement is due to take place outside the Higher Education institution anyway) but meets the request by facilitating the local organisation frequent lack of placement opportunities for our own students. The long term benefits, which can be considered at this stage, are to be directly identified at the student level as the teacher and administrative staff commitment is too weak to contribute to an « institutional international culture » from a realistic point of view. Thanks to our events organised for current participants and potential future ones but also thanks to the media dissemination about student exchange (as caricatural as they could appear), a student registrating at our University College or who begins his Bachelor / Master training can clearly consider a part of his curriculum, mainly through placement experience regarding our short ? term Bachelor studies, could happen the same way at Brussels or abroad but with a suitable and predictable way (official documents and language requirements).

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