Vocational training is THE lever towards employability. In a region where the unemployment rate remains higher than average, opening up to the international market represents an important lever for : 1) make learners want to invest in their training again by giving meaning to this training and instilling pride in having chosen the professional voice, 2) open the horizons of young people and make them discover something else: another culture, another professional culture, another environment, other professional practices and enrich not only their professional career but also their personal culture, 3) to engage the learner on the path of higher education and on the path of excellence. Similarly, a large majority of young people are not very mobile. Encouraging them to go "far away", to appreciate the experience and to make them understand that they are capable of doing so, could later decide them to accept a job far from home and thus increase their mobility, this time on a national level.
The Hauts de France academic region, the region with the most young people under 25, is a region of challenges: 80% of families are eligible for social assistance, 27.7% of 15-24 year olds are unemployed (national average = 24.2%), 17% of students inVET drop out, while more than a third of middle school students are directed to VET, often by default. The rate of access to higher education for vocational high school graduates is lower than the national average. Since 2013, the date of the first PIMEN consortium (Plate-forme d'insertion par la mobilité européenne en Nord-Pas de Calais), the Académie de Lille has been pursuing the primary objective of giving students ambition. The aim is to give back its letters of nobility to vocational training and to make students, and teachers, understand that international skills combines to professional skills can lead to excellence. Thus, the PIMEN 2019 project was to be part of a coherent, sustainable and growing policy of European openness decided by the Rector of the Academic Region. Unfortunately, the Covid19 pandemic did not allow us to "unfold" our program as planned.