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Mobility of higher education students and staff supported by internal policy funds (KA131-HED) - Coordinator: IES MARTÍNEZ VARGAS

2022-1-ES01-KA131-HED-0000604892022Mobility of higher education students and stafffinalized
Countries: ES · Grant: €6,762

Objectives

IES Martínez Vargas is a teaching centre which offers the following studies: Compulsory Secondary Education, post-compulsory Secondary Education and Vocational Education Training. Our school is located in a rural area in the province of Huesca. We started our experience in the Erasmus+ Programme when we applied for the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education for the period 2014-2020 in the academic year 2014-15. We have had, as a priority, to carry out several KA103 (currently called KA13) projects forward since the year 2015/16 and that is why we renewed the Erasmus Charter for Higher Education in 2020. This ECHE has allowed our teaching centre to carry out Erasmus+ projects for Higher Education and all of them have as an objective to give the possibility to the students of Higher Level Vocational Education Training (regardless of their socio-economic context) to improve their communicative skills in a foreign language through the undertaking of the traineeship period corresponding to the On the Job Training module (FCT) in a European country. Apart from being integrated into the curriculum, these work placements are fully recognised in the ECTS credit system and are certified in various ways (including the Europass Mobility Document). This makes it easier for the participating students to have better chances to get a new job in an EU country, which is another objective of our Erasmus+ KA131 project. Finally, a third objective is to involve students in European life and culture. This objective is also pursued with the implementation of staff mobilities; in addition, in these mobilities, we also have the aim to achieve collaborations with various foreign institutions, to improve our offer of Vocational Training Cycles and to innovate in the teaching practice of these studies. Unfortunately, over the years, we have been facing several factors which have influenced the projects negatively and that have led to a slow growth in the number of students and staff participating in the project mobilities (although, fortunately, we have managed to gradually increase this small number). First of all, we have had a reduced number of students interested in undertaking this type of mobilities. This has been due to different factors such as the fact of being a rural teaching centre, as most of our students live in small towns or villages in which it is not usual to travel abroad. In addition, there is a reluctance from the students themselves and from their environment to participate in this project, since it is necessary to make an economic effort on their or their families’ behalf to supplement the grant. Finally, the foreign language level of those students who start Higher Level Vocational Education Training, as it is quite low on average, and this discourages them from participating in this type of project. It must be said that the language factor has also sometimes influenced the teaching centre staff and has discouraged them from participating. Despite all these negative factors, we have sought the improvement of this project with different measures: updating the selection processes of participants, the monitoring of mobilities and the communication with participants; boosting the dissemination of our project through our teaching centre’s website (https://iesmv.com/ ), our social networks (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter , among others), our Erasmus+ project blogsite (https://erasmusiesmvargas.school.blog/ ), and the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform; finally, keeping on with the search for other schools similar to ours in other countries through the different available platforms (eTwinning, Erasmus+ Project Results Platform, other Erasmus+ national agencies, etc…) and with our assistance to several Erasmus+ conferences.

Project partners (1)