AHENE Dissemination Plan

Background Information

A group of 4 vocational agricultural schools cooperated and have lifted their cooperation to a higher and more sustainable level. According to the Dutch report "De Arbeidsmarkt in 2016, een verkenning door Aequor voor het domein voedsel, natuur en leefomgeving", Aequor 2011, graduates from vocational courses in animal husbandry have extreme difficulty finding jobs in their sector. The partners therefore have put in extra effort to ensure that their graduates have an advantage on others when entering the labour market. Also they have tried to make their own vocational qualifications more attractive, interesting and valuable to the vocational students by offering them modules that are built around new, innovative subjects.

This project aimed to work towards a systematic exchange of students.

- Through the development of 8 attractive, innovative and relevant modules, students become better prepared for their future jobs in the fields of animal husbandry. Modules include input from the sector and the schools are now able to offer students more flexible learning paths including educational periods at international partner schools;

- The exchange of students on international learning modules has given the partners the opportunity to develop their own schools into more internationally oriented institutions. They have enriched the educational experience of their own students and staff;

- Through using ECVET principles in this project, the participating partners are now better prepared to exchange their students with other schools;

- Animal husbandry companies have contributed to the choice of subjects that they think are relevant, interesting and valuable to the VET students. Companies were involved as practical training companies, excursions and sparring partners for learning outcomes. Due to their own participation in the AHENE project, these companies have also become more internationally oriented themselves.

The AHENE network composes of 4 agricultural schools in the Netherlands, Wales, Sweden and Finland.

This project is funded by the European Union

Target Groups

2 main target groups were addressed in our activity plan:

1) Teachers: the teachers in the project were a target group because they were actively involved in the development of educational materials and helped in the development of processes to organise the educational routes in a more international way. These teachers have gained professional experience through their work in the project. In the end, this has improved the quality of their teaching, which has contributed to the learning routes of the main target group: vocational students. Many teachers involved in this project have really developed themselves through teaching international groups (and teaching in English too). It has widened their own perspective on their professional sector and has taught them different didactical approaches which can be used in (international) classes. Working with students from different backgrounds has also taught teachers to think about 'what is perceived as normal and accepted' in their own professional workplace. Working with students from different backgrounds has also shown teachers alternative ways of student-teacher communication. Teachers were addressed mainly during 2 project activities:

- working on the development of intellectual outputs/learning materials;

- during the pilot exchanges, teaching international courses to both national and international students in English.

2) Students: The most important target group were vocational students in the fields of animal husbandry. The project aimed to develop international educational modules (learning materials) for vocational students. The level of these modules have been written in EQF levels 3-4. Ultimately the students have benefitted from the project results. Students have had impressive experiences during their international exchanges that have shaped them as humans and professionals. Their personal development during the exchanges should not be underestimated.

Students were mainly addressed during the pilot exchanges, but have also been involved in the evaluation of project activities, dissemination of results and also informing other students about (future) possibilities for international exchanges. During the exchanges, students have learned a lot about new perspectives in their professional sector (animal husbandry), about studying and living in another country and about communication with foreign peers. Through the students, companies from the sectors will, in the future, acquire well trained professionals to fill their vacancies.

This project is funded by the European Union

Dissemination Activities

We will disseminate the project results inside and outside our organisations. Please also see “Dissemination Records” which describes the activities already carried out during the project.

Sharing with All Partners

The project results will be shared amongst all partners involved. All materials and experiences will be shared, thus enabling all partners to gain maximum benefit from the participation in this project. At the end of the project, a final project report will be written.

Along with the materials produced, this report will be disseminated in various ways:

Internal Dissemination

The participating institution will disseminate the projects results and experiences internally to other educational teams. This is an ongoing activity. Here, they will explain how they have developed international learning materials and how they manage to recognize and validate the learning outcomes from international exchanges for individual students into the home curriculum. By sharing this information with other educational teams, the partners enable their other teams to start up similar activities. The partners will publish the outputs on their home websites and in their electronic learning environments (e.g. www.lentiz.nl & www.lentiz.org).

National Dissemination

At the national levels, the partners involved in the project will share the project experiences and results with partner schools and colleges in the same fields of study. The partners in the project will actively distribute their results and experiences amongst their peer institutes. In the Netherlands, for example, the project results will be shared and the module descriptions may form a basis for standard units of choice in the Dutch qualifications.

Presentations and information will be given to the National Agency of Erasmus+. There is a possibility to present to former Erasmus + project members at the 30th year celebration in December 2017. The project manager has responded positively.

International Dissemination

The partners will disseminate the results of the project on the 'EUROPEA International' network. This will be used to spread the good practices from this project to other agricultural colleges and they will be invited to join the network after the project ends to extend the network over time.

We are also intending on joining together with the ECVET project AgriECVET to work on a new KA2 project “Feeding the World”

This project is funded by the European Union

EUROPEA members will be informed through their website www.europea.org (online communication channel) and through presentations (if possible) at the international EUROPEA-meetings.

Responsibilty and Resources for the dissemination activities within our partnership will be as follows:

Internal dissemination within the partner colleges: each college is responsible for this type of dissemination, using standard communication channels:

- Each partner will present the project outcomes and materials during meetings within their own college.

- Colleagues from other teams will be involved in the guidance & hosting of the international target groups and as such they will become involved in the activities.

- Partners will take up the modules into their own education system.

National dissemination will be carried out by each project partner, and will be monitored by the project coordinator, who will ask partners about the results of this type of dissemination 6 months after the project has ended;

- the partners will share the project experiences and results with partner schools and colleges in the same fields of study. This is done during meetings of national networks, where the project experiences and results are presented and discussed. At these same meetings other colleges interested in joining the network will be approached and linked to the network. The partners in the project will actively distribute their results and experiences amongst their peer institutes.

International / European dissemination: the coordinator will approach EUROPEA International to share project results and report on a mutual working platform. EUROPEA-members will be invited to join the network after completion of the project.

Please see: http://europea.org/projects/ahene/

This project is funded by the European Union