SUMMARY E+2018 KA103
The summary of this project will be something special, in fact a disappointment over its realization caused by the conditions of the COVID pandemic. Our goals were, of course, related to the successful mobility of students and staff, which we have so far managed to achieve 100 %.
We started successfully with the implementation of mobility for teaching our foreign language lecturer in Istanbul at Sabahattin Zaim University in April 2019. This was the first contact with an educational institution in Turkey, where the lecturer presented Celje, Slovenia, our education system and our institution. She introduced and implemented some new methods of teaching English. The topic of the lectures were intercultural differences, prejudices, stereotypes and how to include them in English lessons. The lectures and the whole visit were a great challenge and enrichment for the lecturer. Establishing contact with Turkey and arranging a “return” visit of their lecturers was also very important.
After the presentation of the Erasmus+ program, the published call for students and the meeting of interested students with the E+ coordinator, one student decided on mobility. In November 2019, we started the activity and the student received all the help to arrange mobility for the purpose of internship in Portugal. The E+ coordinator connected him with POLYTECHNIC OF PORTO, SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGY in Portugal, we have already arranged the initial documentation, accommodation and the student has passed the OLS. He would start the internship in January 2020. Then the student resigned unexpectedly, for personal reasons.
We resolved the situation in cooperation with the National Agency. Following an application to change the type of mobility, in March 2020 we were granted an extraordinary transfer of funds from student mobility for traineeships to staff mobility for training purposes. Thus, we were able to prepare everything necessary for the mobility of three lecturers at the Integrated Business Faculty in Skopje, Macedonia. In the first half of March, we arranged all the documentation, booked a hotel and bought plane tickets. Due to the declaration of the COVID pandemic, the planned mobility was cancelled.
We did not give up, believed in improving the situation and asked for an extension of the project until the end of May 2021. Of course, there were many obstacles: closure of borders, closed educational institutions with the implementation of distance learning and of course, staff fear of participating in mobility due to unstable and rapidly changing conditions.
We really hope that such a year will not happen again, that we will be able to overcome obstacles and still go on physical mobility. As a positive shift, we can state that from mid-May (KA107) to the end of June 2021 (KA103) we again performed six staff mobility.
