Rationale: Regionalisation versus globalisation. In all of the regions involved in this project, unemployment rates are high due to a variety of reasons. When one takes into account that small and medium sized companies (SME's) in the areas involved produce about half of the nation's economic output but account for approximately 20% of exports, a lot can be done. Most SME's in these regions are struggling to survive yet are extremely hesitant to look across borders when in fact the world is at their doorstep. Experts state that in a globalised world, SME's need to be able to confront an increasing competition from developed and emerging economies and to plug into the new market opportunities. There is a direct link between internationalisation and increased SME's performance. International activities reinforce growth, enhance competitiveness and support the long term sustainability of companies. In turn, companies indicate that there is a considerable gap between education and the labour market/industry. VET students lack hands on compentencies. As VET centres, it is our responsibility to take this to heart because we are able to change the mindset of our students to thinking globally and acting locally. After all, our students will be the next generation of entrepreneurs. Both of the above-mentioned issues need to be addressed and dealt with in close cooperation with all parties involved. This is why this project involves schools, companies and local government (also referred to as the triple helix principle). In this project the focus lies on two departments; the Economics department and Tourism department.Why transnationally?The strengths and opportunities from one area could be of use to the other regions involved. Hence, we would not only like the students to become more familiarised with the concept of globalisation but the companies and municipalities as well. Ergo, students will become more responsible, pro active and show more initiative. It will increase their chances to enter the labour martket, not only within this region but also internationally because they will have become more flexible/adaptable and fluent in English. Companies will receive feedback from the market reserach about the current needs of the market and this might help them to adapt their martket strategies on an regional/national/international level. The companies might obtain new international partners. The teachers will also benefit because it might lead to transfer of knowledge regarding education programmes, curriculum and foreign companies. The need for a more international view in the current economic climate is paramount in order to regain a healthy economic climate. Objectives and target groups:Ergo, this project is not solely a result of schools working together, the key to successful international entrepreneurship revolves around the participation and cooperation with local businesses/local government and organisations as the Chamber of Commerce, Export Clubs and other Business clubs ( Rotary). The municipalities of each of these towns have agreed to sign the Letter of Support in order to emphasize that they are adament to join forces. Several chambers of commerce and/ or business clubs have agreed to sign this Letter of Support as well. Because of the expertise of all these parties involved, the students will learn from existing companies and obtain valuable knowledge and skills. They will be exposed to the cultural differences and entrepreneurial skills by means of presentations of Chambers of Commerce. With this information students have to conduct an International Market Research that will result in identification of the needs of the local entrepreneurs, which could lead to import/export of products but also of ideas and knowledge. Please note that the Tourism students will research, map out and promote the recreational opportunities in the countries involved and this might boost local economies as well. Hence, all students will gain (international) insights, allow students to enter the labourmarket better. Each partner will set up case studies of good trade practice in their country to be shared across the group. The findings; its benefits and challenges will be explored and analysed and presented in a Business Plan.

While working in the field of vocational education and training (VET), three organizations from Germany, Netherland and Austria saw that their participants and apprentices are cultural very differently. This diversity puts a strain on the educational professionals. The individual level, the motivation, and cultural and social background is completely different. In 2015 and 2016 there arrived a lot of young refugees this three countries. It is probable that younger refugees will soon begin to take part in VET. This will increase dramatically the cultural diversity in VET. BTZ offers initial vocational education and training to younger people with learning or social difficulties in Lower Saxony, Germany. The Education center Gaming is a school for rural business- and housekeeping-management. It offers initial vocational education in Gaming, that is in Austria. Alfa College offers a wide range of initial vocational education in the north east of the Netherlands. These three organizations build the „European trialog: Diversity in vocational education“. In three years they want to settle appreciation for cultural diversity in their organizations and also in their education. Thus they enhance the international dimension of vocational education. Their strategy is to interlock development of educational staff and organizational development with a strategic partnership. From each organization there will one or two managers and also three to four persons from educational staff. Important activities are two trainings for the educational staff and at all six transnational project meetings. Between these activities there are work packages to develop. Their results are used in the next meeting and vice versa. The first main theme of the project regards the cultural diversity of all people and cultural awareness. Educational staff learns to teach this to their colleagues and enable them with guidelines and teaching material to foster cultural awareness among their participants and apprentices. The second main project theme is about competences and knowledge learned in an informal way. The educational staff will experience how much they have learnt in an informal way, how much more they are able to do because of this kind of learning. After this amazing experience they learn to help younger people to find what they have learnt without school or lessons. It helps to develop learning competences as a key competence for lifelong learning. Then they teach again their colleagues to do this. The third project theme is organizational development. The managers take part in two of six transnational project meetings. In each organization there is an Internationalization team. It works with the management to develop processes and structures after setting up an analysis. The results of the analysis will be used in the project meeting to develop ideas. Part of the organizational development are also the teaching of multipliers and developing teaching materials and guidelines. Thus the appreciation of cultural diversity and awareness of informal learned competencies are strongly settled in the organization. And also this themes will be made visible, for visitors, participants and staff. In all three organizations there will be organized a public event by participants and educational staff, in which all the results will be shown. Participants will be engaged to show what they have learned about cultural diversity and awareness. This can take place in various and creative forms. Also the stakeholders and international project partners will be invited. The final meeting prizes all the results. There will be defined targets for the next two years because likely the partnership will have a future. Two meetings are scheduled for 2020/2021. The project results at the end of the project are a changed organization with processes and structures enhancing the appreciation of cultural diversity and enhancing learning. The special results to be expected regard to the intercultural abilities and the informal competencies of personnel. Another result to be expected is the fostering of the internalization of the educational organization by giving a high mobilization to management and personnel. Remarkable is the influence to the young participants and apprentices. Especially young people with disadvantages and migrants will profit from learning key competencies and learning competencies. Thus the project contributes to the inclusion in vocational education.

<< Objectives >>OBJECTIVES1. Raised awareness about the project topics2. Increased young generations knowledge3. Increased teachers knowledge4. Reduction of bad health habits5. Reduction of the negative side effects and improvement of wellbeing while having distance learning and working6. Reduction of the negative environmental footprint7. Introduction of more out-class sports activities8. A change of mindsets and behaviours9. Strengthened twinning between citizens from different EU countries<< Implementation >>ACTIVITIES1. Project kick-off2. Project team meetings (PTM)3. Web page updates about the project4. Dissemintation of project results5. Seminar and workshops6. Student and teacher mobilities to partner organisations7. Development of digital manual8. Surveys<< Results >>RESULTS1. One (1) kick-off event2. Five (5) project team meetings3. Three (3) web page updates4. Five (5) press releases5. One (1) seminar with attendance around eighty (80) students and sixteen (16) teachers6. Two (2) workshops with attendance around twenty (20) students and four (4) teachers7. Three (3) mobilities with thiry six (36) students and nine (9) teachers directly involved8. One (1) developed digital manual9. Two (2) developed and distributed surveys

According to Eurydice (2019) “Integrating Students from Migrant Backgrounds into Schools in Europe: National Policies and Measures” -report: “migrant students underperform and express a lower sense of well-being in school compared to native-born students in most European countries.” There are different factors at play, but among them, is the question of teachers’ ability to consider the diversity and to adapt to needs and to provide adequate support. It seems, that there is a lot of material about racism and multiculturalism in the field of basic education, but in general, very little in the field of the vocational sector. Therefore, there is a great need to gather more information from different countries and exchange as well as to adapt the good practices to the vocational sector, too. The project objectives are twofold: we want to improve the vocational college teachers’ (subject and practical) skills and competences to detect and understand racism in the vocational college setting and to better equip them with needed competencies and practical tools for them to adjust and support students with diverse backgrounds. The chosen concept is four-day workshops (LTT-activity week) that are to be carried out in each project participant’s country. The structure of a workshop will be as follows: Day 1: Introduction to the local context Day 2: Presenting the findings and discussion + exercises Day 3: Developing and preparing a small pilot activity Day 4: Pilot day + evaluation The focus of the workshop, however, changes according to the host college as every country has its context that should be considered when talking about multiculturalism and racism. Countries’ different migrant histories’ and stages provide a massive amount of valuable information as well as do the participants' multifaceted backgrounds and experiences. However, to ensure that the workshops are focused, contextualised and time-efficient we’ve been contemplating inviting experts to facilitate the first two days of the workshop.

The aim of this project was to develop a toolkit to be used with the ECVET documentation. This toolkit should be especially aimed at the IT sector since we looked for but didn’t find any documentation on the internet that could make our work with filling out the ECVET documentation easier.During Sweden's transnational mobilities for its students some questions arouse:Is the ICT market the same in different parts of Europe?Is the ICT vocational education similar in different parts in Europe or does it differ and if, in what way?Is it possible to make some templates or drafts that would make the filling out of the ECVET documentation easier and which would work in all of Europe?These were also questions we wanted to know the answers to and that's why this project was founded.The objectives were to compare our educational systems to find similarities and discrepancies and to establish the EQF levels of our different educational programs. We also wanted to know what the companies looked for to employ our students and if it differed in different places of Europe. From the information gathered we wanted to make learning outcomes to be used in the ECVET document system for some different work roles that our students could have during mobilities.number and type/profile of participants; The participants were from five different parts of Europe to maximize the geographical spread. There is a variation of sizes of the participating schools which also could give different perspectives on the project. The participants were Sweden (north), the Netherlands (middle), Estonia (east), the Republic of North Macedonia (south) and Portugal (west). All the participating countries have some sort of vocational ICT education on upper secondary level.Each country also contributed with different skills or experiences we thought valued for the project:The Swedish representative is included in a large consortium for Erasmus+ KA1 mobility which sends a lot of students on transnational internships every year (not during the pandemic, but before and will again).North Macedonia is specialised in special needs since their school is specialized for hearing impared and they also do some transnational mobilities. And had some eTwinning experience.The Netherlands have a lot of experience with international projects and they also work actively with including and integrating refugees and immigrants to the Dutch community.Portugal had experience of eTwinning and of international projects.Estonia also has experience of international projects and has a long experience of vocational education within ICT.During the project we had a transnational project meeting in all the participating countries. During these meetings we did study visits to different ICT companies and interviewed the employers about what skills and competencies they looked for when they recruited new employees.We also compared our different educational systems and curriculums to find similarities and discrepancies. Further more we also compared our different ECVET documents that we used for transnational mobility. The aim was to make some common ECVET documents to be used for transnational mobilities within IT and to learn from each other's different experiences and knowledges. All in purpose of making it easier to implement transnational mobilities and thus increase student mobility in Europe. We found that we all had an educational level equivalent to EQF level 4 and that our different end result of our IT related VET educational program didn’t differ that much. We also could conclude that there were no bigger differences in what the employers looked for with an eventual employee in our different countries. We also could conclude that the employers on the whole generally rated soft skills higher than pure technical skills which was a bit unexpected for us. We identified some different work roles within IT that our students could take in eventual transnational mobility and established which learning outcomes would be proper for the different roles.The information gathered is also used in the teaching at all the participating schools and thus increased the quality of teaching at these establishments with a wider and deeper international perspective.Hopefully this will help our organisations with the documentation during transnational mobility and also help others as well. One unexpected outcome was that one of the participants is now involved in writing new national curriculums within their educational system on secondary level, partially due to their involvement in this project!Experiences from this project is now also included in the teacher training program at the portuguese organisation.