Welcome to the project THEME

In the following we would like to inform about the project:
Project THEME – Cooperations

Partners

Vocational training institutions involved
Adolf-Kolping-Berufskolleg, Horrem
Berufskolleg Bergisch-Gladbach
Berufskolleg Bergisch Land, Wermelskirchen
Berufskolleg Eifel, Kall
Carl-Reuther-Berufskolleg des Rhein-Sieg-Kreises, Hennef
Geschwister-Scholl-Berufskolleg, Leverkusen
Hans-Böckler-Berufskolleg, Köln
Joseph-DuMont-Berufskolleg, Köln

THEME – Aims and objectives
The project THEME wants to contribute to the fact that an internship abroad for trainees will be as natural as it is for university students. Experts in vocational education and training (VET) from Spain, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Italy, Finland and Germany assure the quality of VET mobility and contribute to its validation and recognition regarding the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) guidelines. At the same time a network will be built between committed partners engaged in European vocational education and training. Everybody profits from this: the trainees themselves, their companies and the teachers mostly organizing the internship abroad.

THEME – Background
The mobility of VET students increases their chances on the European labour market, strengthens their personality and European identity. It is intended to increase students’ mobility rate to 6% until 2020 (aim of the EU) respectively to 10% (aim of the Federal Government). Currently the VET students’ mobility rate amounts to less than 3%! This objective can be only achieved by assuring more trainees of the benefits of an internship abroad. In addition it is also necessary to convince their companies to enable mobilities to a broader extent. In this regard they have to recognize the benefits of a Europe-wide mobility. The trainees are able to gain insights
of work procedures in other countries and thus are able to give new impulses in their home company. Another advantage is the students’ growing self-esteem as well as their growing selfreliance.
Furthermore their knowledge of foreign languages will be improved, which is also beneficial for enterprises with business relations abroad. Viewed in the context of challenges caused by youth unemployment and the lack of qualified employees, internships abroad contribute to increasing opportunities on the labour market. Europe-wide vocational education and training is still restrained by huge differences between the VET systems. There is a lack of transparency concerning the possibilities in vocational education and training in the different countries. Especially the recognition of long-term internships abroad is still insufficient. Furthermore the organization of internships abroad involves time-consuming procedures.

THEME – Content
In the project THEME instruments will be created and improved to simplify the operational management of internships abroad.
Furthermore the implementation of the ECVET process (European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training) will be facilitated. A quality assurance of internships abroad and their recognition will be improved. The results and tools of previous successful projects (VQTS, TRIFT, ECMO, E.R.M.E.S.) will be consolidated, evaluated and extended. They will be available on
a database for facilitating the organization of mobilities. At the same time a network of committed partners in the European VET will be set up. Based on existing competence matrices in the sectors trade, hospitality, electronics and mechatronics, partial competences/ learning units will be defined and integrated into a database. The database will generate learning agreements, assessment tools and the EUROPASS mobility. The learning agreement for the internships abroad, their validation and recognition as well as their organization will be facilitated.

An access to the database you can get here:
https://smart.theme-eu.net/login/auth

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