Recognising that international activities and exchanges are of great added value for both students and teachers, the RMBK has set itself the goal of reviving existing projects from previous years, initiating new projects in the Focused Educational Programmes and promoting international activities. Specifically, the short-term project had the following four objectives 1. to increase participation in European stays abroad through intensive counselling sessions with commercial trainees and training companies. 2. to promote the professional language development of our trainees in English-speaking countries through the qualification programme "International Business Management Assistant (AHK)". 3. Strengthening the international professional skills of our commercial trainees through the "European Businessman/Woman (IHK)" qualification programme. 4. to promote the expertise of our training staff, to optimise our additional European qualification measures and to support the development of a professional network in Europe.
The Rhein-Maas Berufskolleg (RMBK) is a combined school that offers around 3,000 students a very comprehensive and differentiated range of training programmes in various vocational fields and specialisations. The activities initiated under the short-term project focused in particular on the business and administration department, which trains, among others, office clerks, wholesale and foreign trade clerks and industrial clerks according to APO-BK Appendix A. For many years, efforts have been made to develop the European idea of teaching and learning and to promote international exchange in these training programmes. However, the coronavirus pandemic has brought the projects initiated in previous years to a standstill. The restrictions and uncertainties associated with the pandemic made it difficult to continue previous activities and to initiate new international projects. To make matters worse, the teacher who had been in charge of international activities for many years retired during this period, so that it was not possible to introduce and train her successor.