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Kis- és középvállalatok működtetésének európai ren..
Kis- és középvállalatok működtetésének európai rendszere
Start date: Jun 1, 2015,
End date: May 31, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
The project was implemented by the Centre for Business Vocational Training of Budapest's Károlyi Mihály Bilingual Vocational School of Economics; Kent School of English, Broadstairs, UK and WBS Training AG, Dresden, Germany and their local partners. The aim of the project was to provide students both studying in years 9 to 12 (that is before their final examinations) and taking part in higher vocational training the opportunity to get acquainted with the European system of running small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Great Britain and Germany, and as a result gain insight into the business practices of developed EU member countries, and after graduation be able to use their experience in the course of their career. It is important that our students apply and strengthen their academic knowledge acquired in the classroom in practice as well. To underline this goal, the evaluation of the students' internship achievements issued by the recipient institutions was taken into consideration in the course of the assessment of their academic performance.
A possible solution to the high rate of unemployment among young graduates can be starting up their own enterprises, and we expect that the acquired experience could even trigger the entrepreneurial spirit in them in the long term. An additional goal was that they apply their already existing knowledge and the skills enhanced in the course of the preparatory week in practice and in a foreign language environment. Our project also aimed at fostering the students' language skills for professional purposes, which they can directly utilise at the forthcoming school leaving examination and language examinations. Participation in our project can also contribute to a more successful performance in higher education. Furthermore, it was also our intention that the participants experience the mobility as wholly as possible and acquire such experience that can boost their self-confidence in their native environment.
Participants of the project were selected from those 9th-12th grade students who specialise in commerce-marketing, business administration and economics, but had not completed their secondary education yet, as well as from the higher education vocational courses for finance-accountancy also provided by our school. Those students specialising in commerce-marketing were placed at businesses working in the field of commerce, while in the case of the other two groups the nature of the business of their work experience place was not so relevant, as they were focusing on the financial and accounting procedures and practices of the enterprises, which are more or less the same at most SMEs. A further expected result was to increase the mobility of our students so that they would be more confident in choosing another EU country as their place of studies, internship or work. We expected them to share their experiences with their fellow students and therefore motivate others to participate in similar projects.
The project was implemented in three stages. During the preparatory phase, the negotiations and contracting took place with the partners and the students were selected and prepared. The accompanying teachers organised transportation and accommodation, and assigned the work experience places to the students in close cooperation with the partner organisation's mentors. The day-to-day programme was also fixed. This phase lasted from 1st June 2015 to 22nd August or 3rd October (German and UK mobility respectively). Mobilities took place between 23rd August-19th September 2015 in Dresden and between 4th October-1st November 2015 in Broadstairs including one week of business German/English language preparatory course and three weeks of work experience. The students were introduces to the mangers of the workplaces by their native mentor who aided them together with the accompanying teachers in fitting in the workplaces. The students were required to write a work placement journal and a personal diary in English or German that were regularly checked by their teachers. In order to ensure the real time sharing of experiences the students actively cooperated in the writing of a blog and contributed photos to the programme's facebook profile. Every weekday night our partner organised evening activities that provided an opportunity for enhancing intercultural skills as there were always students from other countries participating, in addition to releasing the stress of the workday. During the weekends the students went on trips in order to get acquainted with the natural beauty and historic, cultural and architectural heritage of Germany and Great Britain. The evaluation and dissemination of the project (sharing results, exchanging experience) took place between 20th September or 2nd November 2015 and 31st May 2016 using the methods outlined in the dissemination plan of our tender.