This project aims at fulfilling several goals: Firstly, we strive to foster and strengthen the pupils’ personal, intercultural and professional skills as well as skills specific to all occupations. Secondly, we aim at broadening our pupils’ horizons, so that they may consider the Eastern European labour market with an open mind and get access to that labour market. Furthermore, this project aims at reducing prejudices and strengthen the European spirit. In particular, we aim at fostering our pupils’ sense of European identity, and we strive for them to become global advocators for Europe and democracy.
Our German-Polish project at Vocational Schools Groß-Gerau (Berufliche Schulen Groß-Gerau, BSGG) has arisen from our wish to bring the European idea to life at school. This project, which we started in 2016, offers our pupils and our teachers the opportunity to participate in vocational exchanges on the European labour market, and thus they all play their part in supporting vocational education in Europe. Since interest was enormous on both the pupils’ and the teachers’ parts, we offered a second run of the project in 2020. By now, we send a group of about 20 pupils to Poland every year (with the exception of the period in which Covid-restrictions put a halt on mobility in Germany and Poland). Right from the start of the project, we chose to focus on Eastern Europe with the intention of reducing prejudices and strengthening solidarity in Europe. The main goal concerning our pupils is to offer them the opportunity of gaining relevant work experience in their respective vocational fields through internships in Polish companies. We focused on fostering relevant competencies in all occupational groups among our pupils, such as improving communication skills, reduction of prejudices as well as fostering a willingness to learn.