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WGY International Vocational Training in Tallinn
WGY International Vocational Training in Tallinn
Start date: Sep 1, 2014,
End date: Aug 31, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
The aim of the international vocational educational programme is to provide an opportunity for students at the Business and Administration programme at Westerlund Upper Secondary School in Enköping to develop their vocational skills, especially their entrepreneurship and management skills, within the retail business in Estonia. They will also be given an opportunity to develop language and social skills and as well as cultural awareness.
The students will apply to the international vocational training programme during autumn 2014 and 2015. Five students will be selected for the first period January-February 2015 and five for the second period January-February 2016. Through the owner of ICA Maxi in Enköping, a long term vocational educational partner, Westerlund Upper Secondary school was able to establish a co-operation with Rimi Eesti Food AS. Rimi Eesti Food AS will provide vocational educational training in two hypermarkets in central Tallinn.
Rimi Eesti Food AS, the Estonian head office of Rimi Baltic, will offer our students a varied vocational training within the retail business. For our students the HR manager Orne Lainde has chosen parts of the management program to be woven into the students’ vocational training programme. In addition to the vocational educational training the students will learn about business culture, service attitudes and life in another EU country.
Autumn 2014 and 2015 are preparation periods where students will study history and cultural differences between Estonia and Sweden, the European Union and business language. Before, during and after their VET period in Estonia they will receive tasks to study service, sales, communication, entrepreneurship, management issues and business culture. We will use the portfolio model, which means that their assignments will be collected and valued during and after the VET period. The students´ international vocational training will be translated to a Europass. The assignments will be published on a WordPress blog. Assignments, grade grids and other documents, in Swedish and English, will also be accessible on this WordPress blog for our students and for other study programmes or schools to use. Since some of their tasks will be published in English our partner organization, Rimi Eesti Food AS, will be able to follow the students’ work.
The applicants to the international vocational educational training with management orientation in Estonia will be prepared through management and entrepreneurship courses as well as vocational educational training in different stores in Enköping and Västerås. Our students are learners by doing and through their education in entrepreneurship they have learnt to be more daring, willing to explore the unknown and they know how to create a network of people. They are interested in studying or working in another country. The students who will be given the opportunity to travel to Estonia study their last year at the Business and Administration programme. Before applying to the VET programme they are given information about the criteria of application. They will then hand in a formal application and when they are accepted they will sign a formal VET agreement.
Vocational educational study programmes in Sweden have lost both in prestige and reputation. Many of these vocational educational study programmes fight for their survival. We hope to increase the popularity of these study programmes through the development of international vocational educational training. We also wish to give our students a sense of pride in their profession and to increase their awareness of a business which is screaming for well-educated sales people with knowledge in service and management. The international VET programme in Estonia will increase our students’ employability .
We will arrange two programme councils, in 2015 and 2016, where we will invite other schools in the area, in other parts of Sweden and schools from the Baltic countries. We will present our concept on how to create an international vocational educational programme. The project group will also arrange meetings with local politicians. Through our monthly newsletter we will update our network of schools, politicians, entrepreneurs, business organizations, union representatives and companies on the development of our international study programme.
The vision of the Municipality of Enköping is to develop international cooperation and the development of international studies at the Business and Administration programme at Westerlund Upper Secondary school is a wish come true. Through our VET programme we hope to change the view of our students, the view of the profession and to improve vocational educational training in Enköping, Sweden, Estonia and the other Baltic countries.