The main goal at the Robert Bosch Vocational College has been to consolidate the internships abroad in vocational education with the partner school in Norway and to expand them with other project partners. In order to consolidate this with the Norwegian partner school, in addition to student internships in both directions (German trainees in Norway, Norwegian vocational students complete internships in Duisburg), job shadowing activities have also been introduced in order to work in workshops on joint school development topics internationally, such as digitalization or Industry 4.0. In addition, a new project partner should be found in Slovakia in order to offer more vocational students internships abroad, as the number of applicants exceeds the possible places. The Sophie-Scholl-Berufskolleg, whose students have been sent on internships through this project, aims to learn more about Erasmus+ projects, to be introduced to administrative processes and to be able to offer internships for its own students independently in the future. Internships abroad in the vocational context should be made possible and established for the vocational students despite the lack of expertise of the teachers for project applications.
The project has been implemented to promote internships abroad within the European Union for vocational students of the Robert-Bosch-Berufskolleg and the neighboring vocational school Sophie-Scholl-Berufskolleg. Our own students are normally (if there is no pandemic situation) allowed to realize a two-week internship abroad in the second year of vocational school after the AP1 intermediate examination. The Sophie-Scholl-Berufskolleg, which did not have the possibility to apply for a project itself because competent teachers were not available, asked for help and support for their own vocational students and also for professional advice for the teachers in this project. The cooperation and support of the vocational colleges in the north of Duisburg in the hotspot districts of Marxloh and Hamborn, which are differently oriented, should be expanded and intensified through the support in the Erasmus+ project. In addition, a cooperation with ZF Slovakia should be established in order to offer and carry out further internships abroad for the vocational school students, since the number of applications exceeds the number of available internships abroad.