Back­ground

The Intern­ship App project was ini­ti­at­ed as a con­tin­u­a­tion of Intern­ship to Indus­try project in order to raise the qual­i­ty of intern­ships in Europe and at the same time increase the com­pet­i­tive­ness of enter­pris­es to address the lack of skilled young work­ers in tech­ni­cal pro­fes­sions with­in the indus­tri­al branch in Europe. Sup­port­ing place­ments abroad is not only inter­est­ing for com­pa­nies because of a direct increase of pro­fes­sion­al skills and per­son­al devel­op­ment of trainees and employ­ees, when offer­ing place­ments abroad, com­pa­nies intro­duce them­selves as mod­ern and inter­na­tion­al in offer­ing an attrac­tive and var­ied train­ing to young peo­ple. They strength­en and improve their image as an inno­v­a­tive com­pa­ny and help to pro­mote intern­ships as a key pil­lar of voca­tion­al training.

It is impor­tant that VET adjust the train­ing to meet the needs for the indus­try and that the stu­dents and appren­tices will be well pre­pared for the work­ing life with regard to good qual­i­ty in work prac­tice. To learn and work in a com­pa­ny abroad dur­ing an intern­ship is a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence, get to know oth­er cul­tures, com­pa­nies and work­ing envi­ron­ments, and to think out­side the box. An intern­ship abroad opens new per­spec­tives, con­veys tech­ni­cal and for­eign lan­guage skills and, above all, per­son­al and trans­ver­sal skills. This requires good co-oper­a­tion between schools, train­ing cen­tres, insti­tu­tions and enterprises.

How can we raise the quality?

The projects use­ful guides were devel­oped to secure the whole process of work place­ment from the prepa­ra­tion to the point of admis­sion of intern­ship. The guides sup­port schools, com­pa­nies, exchange organ­i­sa­tions, as well as participants.

Euro­pean mobil­i­ty is one pos­si­bil­i­ty to increase the com­pet­i­tive­ness of enter­pris­es. For­eign work place­ments are espe­cial­ly well suit­ed to gain inter­na­tion­al expe­ri­ence and to improve voca­tion­al, lin­guis­tic and inter­cul­tur­al com­pe­tences. At the same time, work place­ments improve the qual­i­ty of education.

What are the spe­cif­ic out­comes and prod­ucts of the project?

With­in the project three sec­tions were devel­oped that pro­vide assis­tance in the prepa­ra­tion, imple­men­ta­tion and fol­low-up of stays abroad.

• Guide for intern­ship coor­di­na­tion in VET

This sec­tion helps the coor­di­na­tor to organ­ise the intern­ship. The intern­ship pro­ce­dure is pre­sent­ed step by step and dif­fer­ent tools are supportive.

• Guide for intern­ship super­vi­sors in VET

This sec­tion sup­ports the super­vi­sor at the work­place by giv­ing him/​her tools for organ­is­ing good learn­ing on the work place and infor­ma­tion of how to men­tor­ing the trainee.

• Guide for intern­ship trainees in VET

This sec­tion helps the trainee to pre­pare for the intern­ship abroad. It aims to pro­mote aware­ness of cul­tur­al diver­si­ty and describe dif­fer­ent kinds of work place­ments in indus­try. It con­tains use­ful doc­u­ments such as check­lists, etc.