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Start date: Jul 1, 2014, End date: May 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

In the province of Noord-Brabant there are six regional schools for intermediate vocational training that have supported each other for years on the developments of Internationalization. We meet on a quarterly basis every year and during those meetings anything worth mentioning is shared. Where necessary, teachers’ and students’ grants can be shared as well. This has been done successfully for years now and in 2013 the idea was born to apply for a shared-grant for staff mobility. We thought it would be a good idea if staff members of different schools could learn from each other during that trip. To allow as many staff members as possible to participate it was decided to take departure from the ideas/wishes from staff members instead of from a clear-cut program. And because Finland has obtained good results during PISA examinations and because all vocational schools have partner-schools in Finland, we decided to offer Finland as the country to visit. In addition, we thought it would provide extra grip to the staff members. Finally, we decided to apply for a grant for 16 staff members so that we could visit in 2 groups of 8 people each. A Coordinator of Internationalization would not accompany them. That it was a great success was proven from the start. Instead of a group of 8, we had to form a first group of 12 staff members, because there were so many applications from all participating schools – and we wanted to allow as many as possible to go. Unfortunately, we could only allow 6 people to go in the second group, due to insufficient funds. Of course, allowing 18 people to go is still better than 16 – even though we easily could have had a second group of 12 if funds had been permitting. After taking care of all applications and intake interviews of staff members, we contacted those schools in Finland which could meet the wishes and ideas of the staff members. This led to a 2-day trip to 2 different schools in Finland who had made a program for our groups. Both visits were very successful and all 18 staff members were extremely satisfied about the organization and what was learned in Finland. Each staff member was given quality time with a Finnish confrere to have his/her questions answered. Both groups also clearly indicated the added value of traveling with colleagues of the participating Dutch vocational schools – during liberty time a lot of information about procedures and methods were exchanged. As Coordinators of Internationalization we have decided to organize a trip such as this in the (near) future.
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