OUR INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS
ERASMUS+ 
FRIESLAND COLLEGE APPLIES FOR ERASMUS+ FUNDING EVERY YEAR.
The European Erasmusplus (E+) subsidy program funds activities which enable students to study and work abroad. Staff can make use of the subsidy to improve their professional skills through training and schooling programs at an EU college, company or institute.
Besides stimulating mobility, we are partner in various European strategic partnerships, also funded by the Erasmus+ programme. Our partners are schools, NGO’s and enterprises in many different European countries such as Spain, Portugal, Denmark, UK, Ireland, Bulgaria and Italy.
ERASMUS+ VET MOBILITY CHARTER
In 2016, Friesland College was granted Erasmus+ VET Mobility Charter, which is meant for organisations with a proven track record in organising VET mobility projects for learners and staff. The charter aims to reward and promote enabling sending organisations to further develop their international strategies.
OUR CURRENT EUROPEAN STRATEGIC PROJECTS
YOUDIGIT?, 2017-2019
The project’s aims are to make an inventory of methods and tools and to collect good practices from the partner organisations on how they use digital means for teaching low-skilled adults. The project offers individuals with low levels of basic skills the opportunity to improve those skills by utilising new ways of learning, or to guide them towards a qualification, moving from the idea of classroom teaching to a fundamentally different approach where IT solutions play a large part.
In this project, Friesland College collaborates with schools and organisations in Bulgaria, Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, Italy and Iceland.
CLAIM YOUR FUTURE, 2017-2020
The project Claim your Future sets the ambition to inspire students to steer change and innovation in their region. In the rapidly changing and globalizing world of today and tomorrow, you need to be financially and economically independent. This independence asks for developing new skills such as personal leadership and an entrepreneurial mind-set. Young people recognize this need, along with the urgency to develop their ambitions and sense of belonging in an inclusive society.
Project Claim your Future is an initiative of VET schools, universities (of applied sciences) and NGO’s of 6 countries in Europe, placing students in the lead. The project is a unique multilevel and cross-sectoral collaboration in regions and in Europe, where innovation takes place initiated and executed by students.
EYE, 2017-2019
In this project (Erasmus+ Youth), six educational institutions (in The Netherlands, Northern Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Slovenia) in the field of early childhood education and six supporting institutions (intermediary organisations) will develop an international education module for their students. The module will be run in English.
During the project period, ten students from each educational institution, who will be selected in the sending country, can be awarded a scholarship to attend a course (learning module) abroad with one of the five hosting partners. For each learning module, two students per country will be accepted, so that the group, composed by ten students, is multinational.
Would you like to learn more about this project? Please visit https://www.project-eye.eu/
COOK YOUR FUTURE, 2018-2020
In the project Cook Your Future (CYF), Friesland College cooperates with organisations in Spain, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Ireland. The aim is to contribute to job creation and economic growth as the project uses culinary culture and traditions as a driver for creative innovation.
Students will propose innovative ways to lift the culinary traditions, ancient recipes, forgotten regional ingredients and traditional cooking techniques to the 21st century demand. Working in the CYF programme, develops students networking skills (working with world-of-work stakeholders), thus stimulating economic growth by developing a highly skilled workforce with employable skills.
CRAFT YOUR FUTURE, 2018-2020
CRAFT AND CRAFTSMANSHIP AS A SOURCE FOR INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY
Friesland College (D’Drive, school voor Creative arts and pedagogic work) is lead partner in this project. D’Drive, together with its regional partners Learning Hub Friesland and House of Design, the University of Valencia, Fab Lab Valencia, the crafts school of Tryavna (Bulgaria) and the Bulgarian foundation for craftmanship and crafts, will combine old crafts with new techniques and the circular economy. Students will figure out what we can learn from old crafts while applying their gained knowledge to solve issues we face today.
The regions of Friesland, Central Bulgaria and Valencia have vast amounts of knowledge and skill when it comes to old crafts. However, this wisdom is nearly forgotten. Additionally, another thing that these regions have in common, is waste. In Craft your Future, students research whether traditional crafts can help current and future trends, as well as modern technologies, can help us transform our waste into a resource. Our hope for the future is that we create a fully circular economy, where the word ‘waste’ is not part of the dictionary.
During the kick off in October, Craft your Future partners and students attended a conference and participated in a training week. Our students shared their views on what trends and new technologies, like 3D-printing, laser cutting, the use of Big Data, new ways of interaction, social entrepreneurship and circular economy can assist us in guiding the traditional crafts to the 21st century with their Spanish and Bulgarian peers.
Self-Employment and English for Peripheral Regions.
In today’s dynamic society we are experiencing giant shifts of change affecting our youth. Urban cities hold the power and opportunities that young people seek. Adventures start, careers form and futures are being built in the bigger cities. Thereby, causing young people to leave their own region and move towards the more urban cities. It is time to take action and start the process of change. This is what Self-Regenerate does, a project of Friesland College, it enhances the chances of young people by equipping VET institutions and students with the necessary tools to boost or start on an entrepreneurship journey!
he partners of this project all reside in peripheral regions, that have a hard time competing with more urban areas, are less influential and with few employment opportunities at hand. According to Entrecomp, the need to develop entrepreneurial competences is urgent. As recognised by Eurostat (2012), we need to increase the opportunities for entrepreneurial careers of young people. This can be achieved by raising awareness of entrepreneurship, developing entrepreneurial competences and helping them set up an enterprise that is adequate to today’s local and international markets. At Friesland College we fully support this development and therefore, the two main objectives of Self-Regenerate are to:
Increase the capacity of VET students to create more successful enterprises. Thus enabling them to become economic drivers of their regions.
Increase the capacity of VET institutions to provide practical and real enterprise support.
This project does not have a top-down method. Rather, the project focuses on creating FOR and WITH the target group. This approach will strengthen the connection between the students and the project, thus enhancing the chances of creating a project of sustainable matter. Once the program starts, an established coaching methodology will be used that will enable the students to develop their entrepreneurial competences and Business English skills. Bringing together these competences and language skills enables the students to take their enterprises into international markets. The additional layer of support is mentoring and/or role models. Through mentoring the students can get extra guidance in their learning process. Through a role model they can be inspired and learn from their role model. Thanks to the transnational dimension, our partners and students can share practices and good experiences across borders. The online platform, will allow students and teachers across different peripheral regions to connect with one another, share experiences and be inspired from case studies in other countries.
The participants of the project are VET students and migrant students. These young people are facing the unemployment challenges of the peripheral regions. By enabling them to build their entrepreneurial competences and Business English skills, they can start their own enterprise and become economic drivers. Time for these regions to become future providers and not laggards of the future.
Are you ready to boost your Business English?
Are you ready to take steps towards starting your own business?
Are you ready to work on your international mindset?
Contact us to get started, k.degroot@fcroc.nl
Entering the GIG Economy 2019-2022
In Ireland, Meath County Council has, joined by regional partner WIN Consultants and European partners from The Netherlands (Friesland College and Learning Hub Friesland), Spain (the Municipality of Vedra and ngo AGACA) and Italy (the Municipality of Capannori and training agency Formetica) the ambition to prepare youth and the society for the new realities of the GIG Economy.
When diving deeper into the Gig economy, the question arises:
Is the Gig economy a liberating new form of self-employment or a new form of exploitation?
Friesland College/CIV Water lead partner in Pilot project PoVE Water
Friesland College/CIV Water will be lead partner in the new European Pilot project Centre of Vocational Excellence Water. This European project aims at enhancing the skills of VET professionals in the water sector. Furthermore, the project focuses at developing future skills of VET professionals that will become more important in the upcoming years.
Within this 2-year project that will officially start in November 2019, VET schools, the water sector, research institutions, higher education and (semi) government institutions from the Netherlands, UK, Latvia, Malta and Czech Republic will join forces and will work closely together. They all share the ambition to develop the full potential of VET and to play an active part in the sustainable growth and innovation of the European water sector.
This project was selected as one of 5 Pilot projects in the whole of Europe.
LEADER serious game 2019-2021
Project LEADER is designed to produce high quality intellectual outputs which enable VET students’ increase of young leadership skills across students in all types of VET institutions.
This is what we want to achieve with this project by using an innovative form to teach this to VET students: the LEADER serious game. During the project we will inspire hundreds of VET students and helping them develop their young leadership skills through playing a serious game combined with e-learning and face-to-face training. After the completion of the project, there will be a very clear and tangible output that will be distributed all over Europe to create awareness about young leadership, soft skills and help teachers of VET to educate students about this.
If today’s young people want to have a strong position on tomorrow’s job market then they will have to take control over their work, their career, their personal development and their lives. In short: to develop their soft skills and show some degree of young leadership in order to be able to continue to occupy their rightful place in the labour market.
As Friesland College we want all European students to gain, at every level, insight into their qualities, knowledge on how to build up a professional network and dare to take control of their careers. They need to know how to be agile and follow developments in their work and take advantage of the opportunities that arise. Our students are the future leaders of tomorrow and their young leaderships role is crucial in finding their position. In this project Friesland College collaborates with schools and organizations in Denmark, Spain, Romania, Malta and the Netherlands.
