The project had the following objectives: 1. To create confident and engaged students who thrive at shcool and graduate from their vocational studies. We want a relevant stay abroad to contribute to the students realizing the breadth and possibilities that exist in their choice of study and vocation, and that mastering a study trip abroad in an unknown country will lead to an increase in their interest in, and pride of, the choices they’ve made. 2. To create confident and engaged students through inclusion of participants with fewer opportunities. As mentioned above, we have students who struggle with, amongst other things, mastering school subjects, cultural differences and financial difficulties – all relevant factors when trying to pinpoint why many fail to graduate. We want to use international mobilities to level out some of these differences. 3. International mobilities are inherently interdisciplinary, and we want to use these to strengthen the students’ competence in various subjects, ranging from English and Foreign Languages through communication when they travel abroad, to vocational subjects through practice at local health institutions abroad.
Hersleb videregående skole is an inner-city upper secondary school in Oslo with ambitions, as well as challenges, related to our student body. The school has a strong multicultural profile, something we consider a strength, but among the upper secondary schools in Oslo we’re also ranked nearly last when it comes to applicant numbers and intake scores. The result of this is that a relatively large proportion of our students come to us without the tools and support they need in order to graduate. This project is explicitly tied to our dept. of vocational studies in the field of health services, which offers the following study programmes: Year 1 HO, a foundational year, Year 2 HO Health services, and Year 3 HO, where our students can specialize in one of two fields: health secretary or dental secretary. The project gives students from Years 2 and 3 the opportunity to travel to Europe to practise their vocations through relevant work experience and training. Our students in the department are mostly in the 16-20 age range, and a majority are girls. A majority have minority backgrounds, and many have little travel experience and/or a challenging financial situation at home. The goal is to provide opportunities where there are few.