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Mobility of higher education students and staff supported by internal policy funds (KA131-HED) - Coordinator: CENTRO INTEGRAL DE FP ILERNA S.L.

2023-1-ES01-KA131-HED-0001196352023Mobility of higher education students and stafffinalized
Countries: ES|DE|IT|MT|PL|SI|UK · Grant: €43,893

Objectives

Ilerna is a comprehensive Vocational Training center with 60 years of experience in the vocational education sector, with more than 1,000 students and 90 teachers distributed across five professional families, offering both intermediate and advanced level programs. The advanced-level programs it offers are highly diverse: Advanced Technician in Dietetics, Advanced Technician in Dental Hygiene, Advanced Technician in Imaging for Diagnosis and Nuclear Medicine, Advanced Technician in Early Childhood Education, Advanced Technician in Social Integration, Advanced Technician in Multiplatform Application Development, Advanced Technician in Web Application Development, Advanced Technician in Marketing and Advertising, Advanced Technician in Administration and Finance, Advanced Technician in 3D, Games and Interactive Environments, and Advanced Technician in Audiovisual and Show Production. This variety results in a very diverse and, at the same time, balanced student body. Ilerna is located in an area with clear rural influence; consequently, most students have never left their area, do not have close references regarding mobility, and do not perceive the need to move beyond their environment. The center is committed to education that fosters mobility and a European mindset, fully aware of the importance nowadays of acquiring skills that go beyond the purely academic in order to improve employability and reach the level of knowledge and attitudes that current companies require. With this vision, we aim to train young people with a mindset aligned with today’s needs: dynamic, with foreign language proficiency, flexible, and adaptable to the ever-changing world in which they will work. For all these reasons, we created this project, born from the need to improve the quality of the center and the employability of its students, with the added value provided by an Erasmus mobility project and the knowledge of the needs of European companies and, more broadly, of other countries, contributing an open, inclusive, European, and modern perspective to participants and to the center itself. To achieve our goal, we have a working team, the ETP (Project Working Team), and our internationalization project with a calendar of activities, talks, experience-sharing events, presentations, and ceremonies. In addition, we carry out various dissemination activities to engage the educational community and ensure that the project gains recognition at a European scale. Alongside these tools and the human team, we have the support of the school management and the entire teaching staff—tutors, FCT (Workplace Training) teachers, guidance counselors… all of us contribute to achieving the project’s objectives. Inclusivity has also been taken into account in this project, seeking measures to ensure the participation of all selected students, with a fair and equitable selection system and quality monitoring, all thanks to the internal structure provided by the project working team and the support of the management team. The project’s objective is for participants to improve key competences that will be of great value in the near future, both for finding employment and for their lives in society. The key competences that have been developed include: learning a foreign language and culture, interculturality, soft skills such as initiative, entrepreneurship, resilience, adaptability, effort, and motivation. We have also sought to improve teaching by learning about the needs of European companies, ensuring continuity of high-quality international mobility year after year, and leveling opportunities with those of university or other higher studies. We have promoted the learning of specific technical competences of quality during students’ first work experience, facilitating the development of a versatile and multipurpose professional profile, improving employability and career progression, and expanding our Erasmus network through contacts with peer institutions and new companies. Improvement in these areas has contributed to advancing our two main objectives: enhancing the educational quality of our institution and strengthening students’ opportunities to obtain quality employment with a curriculum that is more attractive to companies, while improving their skills and making them more inclusive, adaptable, and tolerant. As part of the activities, 33 student mobilities were carried out—28 internships in companies according to their specialization, 5 study mobilities in a Higher Education center through a BIP program—and 3 teacher mobilities in job shadowing. These activities have improved participants in all the aspects mentioned, and thus, step by step, the quality of the center and its students has improved, preparing them better to live in a global world and to engage continuously with internationalization.

Project partners (1)