New Opportunities - New Careers
Start date: Jul 1, 2014,
End date: May 31, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
This project has provided international experiences to 109 students of vocational education of ROC Midden Nederland. This international experience was part of their career planning. Career planning is a central element in the strategy of ROC Midden Nederland to prepare young people for the world of work and for society. Career planning gives them a focus on their studies and on their plans for the future. A small but significant group of students sees an international experience as part of their career planning. They do this this to develop their vocational skills and to develop other skills such as personal skills, intercultural skills and language skills.
Most students have been on a long term placement which is a standard part of most vocational programmes. Students come from many different vocational areas and have been to very different countries showing that a long term placement abroad is a decision taken by an individual student for very individual reasons. These students therefore get very individual support during the whole process.
ROC Midden Nederland has 12 vocational colleges of which most have an international coordinator who promotes international mobility and supports students that would like to go abroad. The international coordinator provides the individual support as mentioned above by preparing the students for the experience, providing a placement company generally through a partner school and supporting the student with the Erasmus plus documentation.
During the placement the student is supported by the coordinator, a representative of the partner school (if possible) and by the mentor through e-mail and Skype. However the students that go on these individual long term placements are very motivated and independent as they will have to take care of themselves most of the time.
Apart from long term placements there were also a number of short term experiences for students mainly through a short term placement in companies like in car mechanics in Italy, mechanics in Norway, Portugal and Finland. There was also a bigger group from different courses at our creative department who went to Italy for a theatre project.
All 109 international mobilities were part of the training of the students whether it was a long term placement of a short term exchange. All these activities were assessment by teachers and used for the achievement of the qualification. The activities and the support were also evaluated by the international coordinators as part of the quality assurance process. On the whole students were very satisfied with their experience. They sometimes had difficulties with the required documentation for Erasmus Plus and some felt they could have had more support during their stay. All students felt that it was an important part of their personal and professional development.
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