The CIFP Portovello bets on the internationalization of the school to be able to participate in the European Community as an example of Vocational Training School, distinguished by its quality and innovation and committed to improve the education and employment opportunities of the European youth and the European society.
In this sense, the CIFP Portovello has organized Leonardo Da Vinci and Erasmmus+ Programmes, whose main aim was to allow students of the Vocational Training courses to go to Finland, Poland, Italy, Ireland or Portugal. Similarly, we have also received Finish, Portugalian and French students, who did their practical training here in Ourense in order to complete their studies. Besides, we have also accepted to participate mobilities for teachers with another eruopean partners. Currently, we are taking steps to increase the number of participant students.
In its internationalization strategy, the CIFP Portovello wants to work only with European countries so as to reduce the bureaucratic process and to fulfill one of the main objectives of the Erasmus Charter, which is to support the consolidation of a European space for Education and Training.
In the framework of students’ mobility, we would like to establish a collaborative agreement with the entities (educational institutions, private companies and other non-profit associations) which meet the following criteria:
- Technical ability to provide adequate theoretical and practical training to students and staff.
- An entity of quality and also with the ability to organize the programs and the required service to guarantee a good location and to meet the needs of students and staff.
- Human resources availability to monitor and support people who are in the program.
- Social Commitment and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to improve human rights recognition, social cohesion and equal opportunities.
The geographical areas of our “European partners” are distributed according to the following three criteria:
- Portugal. The CIFP Portovello as a Galician School is part of the Euroregion Galicia-North of Portugal. Following the European guidelines for the promotion of territorial cooperation policies and cross-border collaboration, we would like to join and strengthen the ties between these two regions. We understand that is a sum of synergies promoted by the GNP-EGTC.
- EU countries with previous agreements of collaboration such as Finland, Italy and Poland. The recent experiences have been very positive for students and because of that, we will try to intensify this cooperation and increase the mobility program to the staff.
- Countries recently incorporated to the EU or on the way to adhesion: Bulgaria, Slovakia, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Romania and Turkey. We encourage collaboration with the regions of the European area which are most unknown for us, trying to establish new ways of development based on the discovery of opportunities in such distant regions.
- And finally also, we are opened to take part in other projects of collaboration with third countries out of the European field, prioritizing the community of countries spanish and portuguese speakers.
The European student mobility program will pursue mainly the following goals:
- Enable the socio-cultural and linguistic exchange and the strengthening of relationships among the EU member countries.
- Provide quality training and increase competitiveness within the European labor market, increasing the chances of specializations mainly for students and faculty.
- Improve the employ-ability and social cohesion, supporting lifelong learning promoting linguistic and intercultural skills.
- Encourage innovation and development and promote the use of ICT. The development of mobility initiatives is not only beneficial for those who are “shifted” but also for the whole educational community involved in the process, because we have to adapt to new methodologies and support collaborative cooperative work in ICT. (This is a strategic objective of CIFP Portovello).
The target groups will be the students of all vocational training courses and staff. Their selection will be done by using affirmative action in order to promote equal opportunities:
a) Students. They will participate in the mobility program intended to complement their studies in their specialty and /or carry out practical training (in job centers). These two possibilities will be opened for all students in middle and high courses of the three professional areas, not only for first courses but also for second courses.
b) Staff (management, teachers…): they will be able to join mobility programs that expand and develop their professional competences.
In the CIFP Portovello we believe in the benefits of our schools internationalization and innovation at all levels, therefore we have collected and organized the information in several official documents such as the functional and the annual project plan.
In order to do this:
1. A coordination team has been created to implement these projects within the organization plan of the school. It has been created to do this work exclusively. The goals of the international program coordination are:
- Achieve cooperation and join the efforts of the whole community: arranging tasks, encouraging communication and internal and external cooperation between stakeholders, besides fostering cooperation between the main departments of the school.
- Keeping the whole community informed of everything related to the projects within the Erasmus Program: through the website and/or blog of the coordination area, the weekly newsletter of the center and specific posters or media.
- Search and Management: although it is a collaborative effort, this coordination will organize the projects to be carried out within the program, such as partner search, search for innovative training, specific training, placements, documentation, trips and accommodation management, etc.
- Assessment and accreditation of everything related to this program: using our own and other documentation (euro-pass, own certificates, etc).
- Spread the results through different media (videos, public acts, etc) to achieve an enriching experience for the whole community.
2. We have also included in the organizational structure of the school other coordination departments to promote and collaborate in the implementation of the project: Languages coordination, Quality and Innovation, Information and work orientation, Professional relationships and TICs.
The CIFP Portovello and community expected to participate in these programs make possible that:
1. Increase graduates in the higher levels are taught in our school.
To participate in these programs, confirm their existence and the possibility of participating in them, we trust in our students who are more motivated to enroll, perform and finish their studies, not only in the regular programs but also in adult programs formed by workers and unemployed. Promoting in this way the increase of qualified professionals within the EU in areas with special demand such as social-health services and administration and finance.
2. Promote Knowledge of the higher vocational training courses in and out of our territory and exchange information between different educational models.
It is necessary that as a School, we work in the propagation of higher education, and in particular of high vocational training courses, since the dissemination and exchange of information between countries will make us a better prepared and qualified society, with a high education adapted to the real needs of the European Union. For this reason, we participate in these programs throughout the educational community and work in the spreading of our courses and in the exchange of information which will allow us to tailor our students to the real needs of the labor world, and will promote higher education in our society.
3. Improve the quality of our teaching.
Participation in these programs will benefit the center which will be recycling continuously and the methods of teaching will be improved showing new educational and business models, improving the knowledge of other languages and developing the use of TIC. To do this, we believe in being in contact with other schools in other countries, not only through exchanges and mobility programs, but also via technology or virtual platforms such as entwining.
4. Bring closer the educational world to work duties.
As a school, we believe it is important to establish a line of action to allow us to bring closer our high education to the real needs of the workplaces, participating in enriching practices and in innovative training processes with high quality, and promoting that the graduates from our center not only receive training adapted to the real world but also with good career opportunities and that they can adapt to socio-occupational contexts easily.
5. Improve our management as a school.
We want to participate in these programs because our school is in continuous process of improvement and adaptation to the real situations in which we live, promoting projects and cooperative programs which make our activities productive for us and for the needs of European society.