Erasmus Policy Statement (Overall Strategy)

Due to the idiosyncrasies of the territory, an island that has received and receives immigrants from numerous countries around the world, IES Algarb saw long ago the need to promote education that encourages learning in practice of languages and decided to stand up for international students trading, VETPRO visits and the participation of students and teachers in vocational Leonardo and Erasmus programs. On the other hand, in Ibiza there are many companies which sometimes hire staff from other countries because of the importance of mastering languages and demonstrate a minimal understanding of the different cultures of potential customers’ countries. In a multicultural society like ours, we want our students to acquire some language skills in order to enable them to enter the labor market in the best conditions.

Our most important partner is Etelä- Kymenlaakso Vocational College in Finland. We have been working with them for four years, through etwinning projects and mobilities of students in health professional family. Throughout these four years our students have done their practical training in hospitals and senior age institutions chosen according to the profile of each of the candidates. This member has given us a lot of confidence and reliability as our students have stated as well as this has been observed in the relationships established with the teachers. We highlight their professionalism and humane treatment in the performance of their functions given in this country to patients, lacking in our health care system but vital to the improvement in patients.Teamwork and the absence of hierarchies is certainly one of the many transferable skills that our

students will improve. Also it is noteworthy its high level of technology that makes our students acquire new professional skills, not to mention the chances of employability by this country.

The impact and spread of these mobilities by the center has made increase significantly the demand for applications, creating the need to seek new partners for students and teachers from other occupational branches. With the help of other vocational training centers we have been able to contact two new intermediary partners (Tourism Training System and Vision Ltd) based in different countries.

Currently these partners are helping us to find companies for both mobilities of students and our teachers. Through these partners we can select the country and company that best fits the needs and professional profile of participants.

The main objectives of the project are:

1. Contribute to the creation of a community of young professionals who are well-qualified, open-minded and have international experience, improving professional and language skills.

2 . Improve professional, linguistic skills and the professional profile of teachers and acquire new innovative teaching methods for our students. Exchange experiences with professionals from other countries.

Better mutual understanding of the different vocational training programs.

• Knowledge of methods and techniques which are different from our own work context.

• Acquisition of new methodologies, possibility to share new working methods and put them in practice.

• Improvement of language skills.

3. Contribute to an international and multicultural dimension of our organization which is currently very important.

In our organization we think the way to achieve our goals according to the needs expressed is encouraging the mobility of students to a European country in which they make a month or more of practices included in the training module workplaces. During this mobility we will encourage to develop personal and employability skills. And besides, our teachers, as an essential part in this process, can make mobility for training in order to innovate and improve the quality of teaching.

The improvement in linguistic and cultural skills that derives from mobility itself, both for students and for teachers, is called to be a very important competitiveness value in the labor market.