MON’s course with regard to internationalization is expressed in the Quality Agenda (appendix 4). In order to achieve the goals, it is not enough just to encourage students to gain experience abroad. If you want to train students different international competences, you need internationally competent teachers. This means that stimulating teacher mobility is an important starting point. Teachers who gain experience abroad at a school and/or company, have a more natural attitude towards students when it comes to developing internationalization competencies. From this point of view, it is very important for MON to be administratively active in management boards of various international associations of schools. These networks provide an easy and fast connection between teachers/directors, which will pave the way for all kinds of internationalization activities for students. The local network of a partner school abroad is the international network for MON. The number of internships abroad is growing: from 488 internships in 2018 to 522 in 2019 (annual report appendix 2). The starting point for call 2019 was of course that this trend would continue. Reality is different due to Covid. There were hardly any international internships in 2020, but this has started to get underway again in the autumn of 2021. Figures are therefore not relevant for this period.
The ambitions of ROC Mondriaan (MON) in the field of internationalization are described in the strategic agenda (appendix 3) and are connected to MON’s domicile. Most NGO’s and embassies are located in The Hague and consequently there is a huge international community. The question is not whether we should provide our students an international educational context, but how. In the 2019 call we expressed the ambition to further expand our international activities. This obviously requires the necessary financial resources. We do this, among other things, with the help of Erasmus+. Since our ambitions are larger and more divers, MON allocates funds itself to further shape these ambitions. Also because they reach further than the EU. From 2021, activities in the UK will no longer be funded by Erasmus+, which requires a different way of funding. Certain MON schools have traditionally been active in internationalization activities. An example is the International Hotel & Management School. Other schools follow the Erasmus+ path. The consequence of the growth of the ambitions of these schools is that the requested budget and the MON expenditure have increased in recent years. Call 2019 has been requested to further shape these ambitions and to support the international pathway taken by our schools.