Context and background: Developing international activities in VET requires new initiatives to global mobility. Bridge the Ocean (BTO) project meets these needs. The mobility between European and Canadian VET colleges is still very rare. We want to prepare our students for global labour market. We look forward to future Erasmus programme 2021-2027 and develop our services accordingly, since there is a growing interest among students for mobility overseas. Besides, the New International Education Strategy launched in Canada in 2019 promotes international collaboration. Developing internationalisation strategy is one of the Finnish national priorities in 2020. The project meets priority by developing the structures and practises of mobility and by establishing a network to support the internationalisation of VET. Besides, we will build the partnership with partner countries, i.e. Canada. The activities include validation and recognition of learning outcomes as well as encouraging students with special needs to participate. Objectives: - to understand the global perspective in VET - to strengthen the international aspect in the strategy of partner organisations - to create a structure for reciprocal mobility and further cooperation between European and Canadian VET colleges - to build a network of VET colleges to support the international collaboration - to promote the validation and recognition of nonformal and informal learning - to create study modules in three professional sectors: Hospitality, Construction and Entrepreneurship - to prepare a toolkit with practical information to help other VET providers to start overseas mobility Participants: Teachers and other staff members of the participating VET colleges from Finland, The Netherlands, Denmark and Canada. Students will participate in the LTT-activities. The management of the VET colleges. Managers play an important role in supporting the strategy and providing resources for collaboration. As a secondary target group, we intend to reach other VET providers and future students by dissemination activities. Description of activities and the methodology used: We will organize five transnational meetings to monitor and evaluate the progress, to work on the products and to ensure dissemination and sustainability of the results. Besides, we will organize three multiplier events as dissemination workshops. LTT-activities play an important role in the project, since we aim to pilot the study modules during LTT-activities in Finland and in Denmark. Our products i.e. intellectual outputs are 1. Model for international collaboration as a part of strategies of VET providers 2. Hospitality in International working environment study module in Finland 3. Green construction study module in Denmark 4. Entrepreneurship study module in Canada 5. Canada-Europe VET mobility -toolkit including practical advice to carry out overseas mobility We will have a hands-on approach in the BTO. The model and toolkit are based on the previous experiences of participating organisations as well as small surveys on the background information. The modules will be designed together with the partners and after piloting and feedback from the students, they will be developed further. The expected impact and long-term benefits: Bridge the Ocean will have an impact on the individual participants through developed professional skills especially in global context. The participating organisations can incorporate the global aspect to the strategies of the organisation. In addition, they will get more skilled and competent staff in the field of internationalisation. There will be more visibility for global issues in internationalisation of VET. For Canadian community colleges the project will have an impact as promoting mobility with European VET providers. We expect that we can reach a wide group of VET colleges through our networks and our dissemination activities. In VET colleges the topic is quite new, and we believe that our project will have a positive impact by sharing the best practises of overseas collaboration and preparing VET colleges for a new Erasmus programme. We will provide a practical toolkit for VET providers to enhance the collaboration. The products will be available for wider use after the project.
The objectives we wanted to achieve by implementing this project were: · understanding the global perspective in VET · strengthening the international aspect in the strategy of the partner organisations · creation of a structure for reciprocal mobility and further cooperation between European and Canadian VET colleges · build a transatlantic network of VET colleges to support the international collaboration · promotion, validation and recognition of nonformal and informal learning · creating study modules in three professional sectors: Hospitality, Construction and Entrepreneurship · preparation of a toolkit with practical information to help other VET providers to start overseas mobility
Developing international activities in VET requires new initiatives to global mobility. The Bridge the Ocean (BTO) project wanted to meet these needs. The mobility between European and Canadian VET colleges has been so far very rare. We wanted to prepare our students for the global labour market and therefore had a look towards the new Erasmus+ programme 2021-2027 which makes mobilities outside Europe possible. We wanted to use this opportunity and further develop our international services, since there is also a growing interest among students for mobility overseas. Besides this, the New International Education Strategy launched in Canada in 2019 promotes international collaboration. With this project we wanted to give Canadian colleges possibilities to pilot outbound mobilities. Together with this, developing a valuable internationalisation strategy for VET was one of the Finnish national priorities in 2020. The project has met these priorities by developing the structures and practises of transatlantic mobilities and by establishing a matching international network to support the internationalisation of VET. The BTO project has built the partnership with partner countries in Europa and Canada.