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Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: Jun 1, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The project “Mobility Consortium for Higher Education” has been promoted by the ARCES University College with a multi-actor partnership with solid background in mobility projects, involving three Universities (Messina, Palermo and Catania), two Public entrepreneurial bodies, Confindustria Sicilia and Confindustria Catania, and one Small medium enterprise, Manageritalia Palermo. The Overall objective of the project is to strengthen the relationships between higher education and the world of work, and to ensure alternation between theory and practice in Europe. The difficult transition from higher education to work is, in fact, one of the most critical aspects of our Society, and one of the area where the European Union has chosen to intervene through Europe 2020-strategy, the framework for cooperation in the field of Education and Training "ET 2020" and the new Program ERASMUS + 2014-2020 to which the project relates. The project has been pursuing two Specific objectives (SOs), since its launch: 1. Strengthening the mobility of students and recent graduates to increase their employability self entrepreneurship attitudes, language skills, and facilitate their access to labour market; 2. Supporting Staff mobility for training to facilitate the building of links between partner universities, the exchange of good practices between different types of organisations involved in the fields of education and training, the transfer of knowledge on the relationships among formal, nonformal, informal learning, labour market and vocational training. Two different kind of mobility activities have been undertaken: 1) Students/new gratuates mobility for a 2-month internship, addressed to 20 students from Universities partners of the Consortium (Catania, Messina and Palermo), which took place in the following eight EU destination countries: Spain (Barcelona, Valencia, Huelva), Belgium (Brussels, La Louvière, Liège), Portugal (Lisbon, Coimbra), France (Bordeaux, Nice, Tarbes), Poland (Breslavia), United Kingdom (London), Slovakia (Bratislava), Austria (Wien). 2) Staff mobility for a seven-day training, addressed to a number of 12 participants from Universities partners of Consortium, which has been carried out through three Job shadowing programs in the following EU destination countries: Spain (Seville), Portugal (Lisbon) and Austria (Wien). The participants to the project are experts working in Mobility/International Relations or International Cooperation (Education and Research) areas within the three Universities partners of the Consortium, dealing with internal and external mobility, education and training both in the framework of Erasmus + programme and other national or European exchange programmes (Tempus IV, Alfa III, LLP), as well as Cooperation and Development projects which are partly supported by Italian Foreign Ministry, EU and so on. In addition to the exchange of best practices developed by the hosting institutions, i.e. ONECO (Spain), Euroyouth (Portugal) and Amadeus (Austria), each participant was mainly interested in how students and new graduates can be supported and facilitated to access the labour market. Results achieved as regards internships for new graduates: • 20 ‘traineeship certificates’ released by hosting institutions; • Europass Mobility Documents delivered; • More than 5 students received a job offer in the hosting country; • 10 students are negotiating with the companies for the renewal of their internship period; • Students’ language skills have been improved; • Students’ self-empowerment and self-esteem have been increased and their soft skills (problem solving, organizational skills, communication, goal-oriented approach, relations management and so on) have been improved; • Higher awareness of European active citizenship; • Greater open-mindedness; • Greater sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. Results achieved through Job shadowing programmes, regarding staff mobility: • Higher level of skills acquired through a better knowledge of good practices related to vocational guidance, balance of competences, balance of proximity, job induction of young people after the period of mobility; • Wider comprehension of practices, policies and higher education vocational guidance systems Results achieved as regards Sending institutions: • Increased ability in management, organization and internationalization of strategies at EU-level; • Enhancement of recognition processes and confirmation of abilities acquired during the period of internship by using the ECVET system. Impact: Looking toward a long-term perspective, the combination of staff and students/new graduates mobility, as well as the cooperation among the members of Consortium, is expected to have a very positive effect on higher educational and professional training systems, and vocational guidance and job induction processes in Sicily, stimulating new reforms within local policies.
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