On the occasion of the european erasmus days (12. And 13. October), the final event also took place in habfurt, where participants of the exchange with guildford college in surrey, england, reported on their experiences and received their certificates of participation. Both students and teachers were unanimous in their positive assessment of the two three-week flows, how the exchange weeks in eu language start.
The erasmus program's requirements are broad, but also fraught with all kinds of bureaucracy. This was mainly handled by roland bitsch, who is responsible for the inter-school contacts in the teaching staff of the vocational school center habfurt.
Claim with 67000 euro
The initiative had come from guildford college. An e-mail had come from there in the fall of 2015. The college is very international and is always looking for appropriate contacts. Teachers from both schools met, the project proposal – 30 pages in english – was prepared and submitted in february 2017. Furthermore, it had to be clarified from which occupational groups students were interested and where there were appropriate internship places in the county of surrey.
In april 2017, a total of 67,000 euros was pledged. The first group traveled to england in november, the second in april 2018. The erasmus program calls for european understanding and the strengthening of european values.
"You presented yourselves very well and conveyed excellent values", roland bitsch praised all participants. He himself still has to write the final report, because only when the project is completed and recognized as useful implemented, there is also the last 20 percent of the demand funds.
Participants were metalworkers, business people, IT workers, and students from vocational schools for food and care and for child care. The university of surrey provided many internships in the cafeteria, in the book and print store and in the building administration. Metalworkers and itlers were employed by companies in and around guildford, including a virtual reality developer.
Tomas furl and felix schymura took over the first presentation. The two students were unreservedly enthusiastic about the three weeks, reporting exclusively friendly colleagues, great creative freedom and exciting excursions. They observed very closely: internet and public transport are much more favorable in the uk than in germany. "But the bottle of water doesn"t only cost 19 cents like at the discount store," said felix, said felix.
In parliament
The visit to parliament left a big impression, because "they sit there in a very confined space and really shout at each other", tomas reported, while felix traced the inner life of the tower-bridge. What surprised both of them was that the buses in london are operated by deutsche bahn!
Lena kuhn, katharina frank, antonia karch and viktoria majewski are doing commercial apprenticeships and were also appropriately deployed in england, namely at the university with its very international student body. Other girls, for example from japan and australia, also lived with the host parents.
"The different accents and also the dialects of the english people were a challenge for us at the beginning," roland bitsch praised all the participants, reported lena. But if you identified yourself as an exchange student, everyone was happy to speak more slowly and clearly.
Any feedback on a completed task was very positive "even if you only evaluated an excel list".
"That we were at the french by 7.They couldn"t understand how the exchange weeks start at 3 p.M.: there, it starts at 9 a.M.", viktoria reported "and in the afternoon there was spontaneous singing in the whole office". The after-work meetings in the pub also distinguished the english from the german everyday working life. The colleagues had also given many private insights and the host parents also took a lot of time to talk to each other.
Enrichment for all trainees
"We became more independent, more confident in our use of language, made new friends and gained a lot of experience." Antonia paid for the canceled departure as well as the three of them living together in a very small space.
"They come back more grown up." This experience has also been shared by tamara muller from the "french" made in konigsberg. Her company provided almost a third of the participants, because these international contacts are enriching for all trainees, regardless of their profession.
Roland bitsch thanked the training companies, which gave almost all of their trainees the entire three weeks off.
Principal heidrun gortler is proud of the commitment of the supporting teachers and the courage of the students to embark on this adventure.
The heinrich-thein vocational school also wanted to enable future generations of trainees to exchange ideas via erasmus, ideally in an english-speaking country. Roland bitsch is still trying to find out whether there will still be EU funding for great britain after the brexit. The current erasmus requirement period runs until 2020.
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