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Higher education student and staff mobility project
Start date: Jun 1, 2014, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Since 2007, international mobility has become mandatory at EPITA. 100% of the students must spend at least one semester abroad during their studies, either in a university or through an internship in a company. The goal is to train future engineers in intercultural management, to prepare them to work in a global context, where adaptability and openness have become key elements since projects have nowadays an international scope. Their experience abroad also permit to improve foreign languages, and above all English, which has become for years a real asset on the labor market, and even more in the field of computer engineering. The school also aims at developing more and more exchange agreements, instead of having fee-paying agreements like Study Abroad, to ensure mobility for all, and allow students with low financial income to go abroad as cheaply as possible. A total of 17 students studied abroad for a semester through the Erasmus + program in 2014-2015. In the final report, we will not make reference to the academic year 2015-2016 because the allocated budget on the 2014 agreement could not be used entirely. In fact, the transition to the 24 months convention has led to some difficulties. A misunderstanding during the final report submission has caused a recovery decision. As a consequence, an important financial gap has occurred during the following academic year. In order to correct that, a supplementary financial request has been done in the 2015-2017 convention, and has permitted to finance all mobilities. The overall number of students who have benefited from the project have gone abroad for an academic semester. The budget for interns and staff mobility could not bee used. All students were 2nd year students in preparatory cycle and went abroad during the second semester. Students are encouraged to study abroad during this period because it represents a key transition before entering the engineering cycle, allowing them to gain maturity and autonomy that will be necessary to continue their studies. EPITA welcomed in parallel 4 Erasmus students in 2014-2015, and 4 in 2015-2016. It remains low compared to the total of exchange students welcomed during this period, respectively 44 and 42. Thus focus will be put on the development of the Erasmus exchanges, through communication actions, in order to try to attract more european students and balance the figures. To prevent the risks related to the experience abroad for both incoming and outgoing students, a number of actions have been implemented: information meetings, coaching sessions on cultural shock, integration activities, and follow-up throughout the semester. These actions have very positive results on integration and avoid the risk of school failure. We observe that students are satisfied with the whole experience. Their stays have been beneficial from an academic and personal point of view, since they have gained in autonomy, and have acquired new skills and intercultural awareness. We regret, however, 2 failures and one cancellation among the 17 outgoing students. The scholarship provided to the student who left the program was allocated to another student during the following academic year. The principles of the Erasmus Charter have been respected by both the institution and beneficiary students. The procedures were applied in compliance with the rules and the budget was correctly dispatched. Efforts to further involve Educational Departments must be deployed to provide incoming students a better support. Financial goals have been achieved since all outgoing students who went abroad through the Erasmus + program received a scholarship covering their entire stay, and this in the upper range of the allowance modulation. Relationships with partners are very satisfactory, but should evolve through new actions of cooperation. The focus will be on cooperation in research, teachers and staff mobility, and finally on International Credit Mobility. The project results were widely distributed within the school, the educational group to which it belongs, but also outside, through partner organizations, but also, thanks to the web, to a much wider public of prospects interested in the international activities of our institution. Intercultural and international mobility have an increasing impact on society. Attitudes have changed, just like the needs of companies and of the labor market in general. International experiences have become essential and minds are open to the globalized world in which we live.

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