In addition to the enabling of the above-mentioned insight into socio-cultural facilities of the host countries and their ways and methods of nursery-school teaching another very important aspect of this project is the chances it provides to the students to improve their self-efficacy and to support their development as a self-reliant person. A great deal of our students has not had the chance to go abroad on their own for longer period let alone doing so without the support of their parents or other helpful supporters. So, the chance and the necessity to cope with all the problems a stay abroad can offer basically on their own – of course with the permanently present chance to get backed up by the responsible teacher- will increase the decision-making and responsibility competence of the students substantially. This time the project enabled young mothers to go abroad for the first time: Without the financial support of the Erasmus project, they and a considerable number of the other participants could not have had the chance to augment their experience and to improve their personality.
After the stoppage of all exchange activities caused by the Corona Pandemic we intended to give our students again the opportunity to gain experience in their work areas by sitting in classes and visiting suitable institutions in different neighboring countries in Europe. The students are very motivated to take part in this project as they can gather credit points they need to get the “Europass-Mobility”, which is an important asset in their application papers. Another important aspect is the acquisition of basic or advanced language skills in the respective national languages of the host countries. Another important aspect is the high potential of insight into socio-cultural facilities of the host countries that is provided to the students by the projects. Furthermore, the self-awareness of being a stranger in a different social environment is another important educational objective and should help the students to get along in their future daily routine in an increasingly multicultural working environment. In addition to providing the students with a well-founded insight into the sociopolitical circumstances of the respective host countries the project especially focused on providing insights into methods of upbringing and interventional procedures as applied in the respective institutions. To enable the students to amplify the experience they made and the impressions they gathered the special course work experience abroad was added to the regular timetable of the students to enable them to engross the insights they could gain in their exchange project. Due to the lack of suitable teachers this additional course has not been started yet. Because of the tremendous effectiveness of this program all students studying to become nursery-school teachers should be offered the possibility to take part in this program. An important development objective is the installation of terms and conditions that enable an effective interchange with the partner institutions in the respective foreign countries and their students. Networking between the partners should be assured and digitally backed communication media should be used to keep alive and improve the contacts with the exchange partners, e.g., via video conferences. A further request is the establishment of regular meetings and conferences for teachers as a platform for the exchange of experiences. Due to the Corona Pandemic this event could not take place. The necessity of distance teaching in the pandemic trained the teachers in the use of digital assets and turned them into competent users of MS-Teams and similar media that could be easily used to establish a sound basis of communication with our partner institutions abroad.