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Betriebspraktikum in London
Start date: Jul 1, 2014, End date: Jun 30, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The sending institution Berufliche Schule H20 Bramfelder See has been organising four week work placements in London together with WMSF for more than 20 years. Participants are the trainees who attend this business college. These students serve apprenticeships as office administration assistants, assistants in health care management, sport and fitness management assistants as well as event management assistants. The main objective of this program is to increase the mobility of the young people on the European labour market, to enlargen their language knowledge (especially acquiring authentic Business-English) and to enable them to gain intercultural experience and competences. Moreover, this project can be seen as an ideal way of introducing the advantages of the German dual education system to employers in other countries. The evalution of the English companies has always been very positive. Especially the practical knowledge combined with a high degree of theoretical background is highly appreciated by the employers in London. Each year about 20 trainees of the above mentioned professions take part in the project. When they start at H20 and at least once every year they are informed about the project at a meeting especially organised for that purpose. Those who are interested in it then must apply for participation. They apply at school but also directly with companies in London. These companies decide whom they will take on, mostly together with the organiser at H20 who is also responsible for booking flights and accommodation as well as informing about everything the participants need to know about their stay in London. Nearly all participants have at least the German equivalent of a GCSE, most of them even the German university entrance qualification (similar to A-levels). This fact combined with the advantageous situation that many companies have been cooperating with our school for many years helps achieve a high level of quality of the work placements. Most companies know what to expect of the interns and try to find suitable, very often demanding tasks. Even companies that start cooperating with us mostly succeed in doing so due to the personal contact e. g. during the work placement. Companies that cannot offer suitable tasks or enough supervision very often inform us about that in order to avoid disappointment. Then they do not take on an intern that year but are of course contacted next time and in case that the situation has then improved take part in the project again. Ensuring a certain standard of quality is considered more important by us than increasing the amount of participants. It is another advantage of the project that more and more companies in Hamburg consider sending their trainees to a work placement in London because they see that they benefit from the experience, increased competence and new contacts of their trainees. Although there are still companies that have to be convinced of this we are glad that due to the information that is spread e. g. at meetings of those who are responsible for the traineeships or on the H20 homepage people start thinking about letting their trainees particpate. Especially in the events industry networking is an essential part of the business. The work placements in London help a lot to increase the personal networks but also the companies' networks so that whole regions can benefit from the work placement project.
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