Apprentices mobility is the movement of students and teachers in vocational education or training (VET) to another institution inside or outside their own country to study or teach for a limited time. The term is usually used in the context of European Union (EU) policy.
Under the EU Lisbon agenda, attempts have been made to lower cultural, socio-economical and academic barriers to mobility. Mobile learners are usually divided into two groups: free-movers, learners who travel entirely on their own initiative, and programme students, who use exchange programmes at the department, faculty, institution or national level (such as Leonardo da Vinci II).
Terminology The practice of going abroad to learn has been denoted by different terms in different contexts over the years, such as "exchange" or "transnational mobility". For the specific practice of sending people abroad on placements in public and private enterprise, the more neutral term of "placements abroad" has been preferred.
Many different practices use the term "placement" as a denominator for their activities, and some form of definition is necessary to distinguish between these, and to mark it off from ordinary employment abroad as well as other forms of transnational mobility. Placements may be set up by an organiser who has made the necessary arrangements for a placement, defined the intended learning outcome, and thought out the pedagogic implications. Placements may also be self-organized by the participant. When a student organizes a work stay in another country during holidays or a study break, may qualify as placements depending on the intent. If the purpose is to acquire vocational skills and/or improve language and intercultural skills in general, it should be seen as a placement, and count it as such, rather than a holiday job.
It may be inscribed in an educational context through accreditation of prior experiential learning (APEL), if the organization can be convinced that the person in question has sought out learning situations during the stay rather than just focused on having a good time or earning as much money as possible. Other activities in this borderline category are au pair placements and voluntary work in charitable institutions and organisations, e.g. as financed under the European Voluntary Service.
The practice of some companies to send employees abroad in foreign subsidiaries for a period of time in order to acquire specific competences may also be considered under this label. It should be distinguished from employment abroad in general, which is another matter. The line is blurred, and different definitions may collide here. Any labour market activity where the participant draws some kind of wages or salary is juridically considered as employment. But payment is not necessarily a way of distinguishing between placements and proper jobs; placements may be paid or unpaid, even though the learning role of participants is often signified by the fact that they receive no – or a considerably reduced – payment.
History Mobility of VET learners can be traced to the tradition of the traveling journeyman of the medieval guilds. Dedicated transnational placement programmes appeared after the Second World War when the organizations AIESEC and IAESTE were set up under the auspices of UNESCO in 1948 to facilitate placements for students of commerce and technology in higher education.
Another placement programme was set up in 1964 by the Commission of the European Communities in the shape of the Young workers' exchange programme (YWEP). In 1981 a binational Franco- German programme for placements (exchanges) in VET was established within the framework of the Franco-German Treaty of 1963.
The Comett programme from 1987 – also set up by the European Commission – grant aided placements of students in higher education in order to promote cooperation between universities and industry and to facilitate transfer of technology. Action 4 of the Lingua programme from 1990 contained funding provisions for young people in VET to undertake placement periods abroad in order to improve foreign language proficiency.
Up to the early 1990s, however, mobility in VET – and in particular in initial VET and for young workers – was very limited and certainly not a realistic proposition except for a very small minority of the total population engaged in VET. Mobility took a quantum leap upwards on the agenda of European and national VET-policies more or less precisely a decade ago, notably with the introduction of the enlarged Petra programme (Petra II) in 1992. That year, 8500 placements were grant-aided through the programme, and by the end of the programme period in 1995, the total number approached 35 000 for the then 12 EU Member States. A significant development at national level was the establishment by the Danish government in 1992 of the PIU programme, which gave people in initial vocational training not just the opportunity but the right to undertake all or part of their mandatory work placements in another EU or EFTA country. Funding was provided by Danish employers through the Employers' reimbursement scheme for apprentices and trainees (AER). This was the first of several national programmes for placements abroad that have since been set up in various countries.
Criteria for defining placements abroad in VET Criteria have been established to define what a work placement is, in order to differentiate it from other activities. A placement: is carried out in an authentic work environment. The placement period is not an artificially created situation, where the central feature is the learning of the participant. The most important thing here is continuing production, and learning is placed second or third or even lower down on the scale of priorities; implies involvement in concrete work processes. The participants are not merely onlookers to the activities, but are given an active role; is for a limited time. Placements are planned and carried out as a period abroad that is set in a (national) learning context – i.e. surrounded by this on both sides. They are not open-ended. Duration, however, may vary considerably, from two weeks to two years. To this we may add another features, which we should term characteristics rather than criteria, since they need not always be applicable.
A placement thus as a rule: demands professional experience as the "entry ticket". Workplaces where it is possible to become integrated in work processes immediately without any prior training or experience are few and far between. Therefore, participation in most placement projects is contingent upon either a wholly or partly completed training course or solid practical experience; is not under the supervision of trained pedagogical staff. Contrary to a school environment or youth exchanges, there are usually no pedagogically trained staff (teachers) or experienced youth leaders around to offer guidance and practical support during the placement period. Mentors may be appointed, but the supervision of the participants is only a secondary task for them; does not take place among peer groups. In school stays or youth exchanges, the participants will often be surrounded by people in the same age bracket and societal position who are in a similar life situation. At the workplace, however, there is a broad spectrum of colleagues, who are largely in a different position from the participant and have different dreams, expectations and interests.
Some activities are excluded from the definition, For example, "work camps" organised to improve intercultural understanding bring together young people from many countries to accomplish a practical task such as building a playground, or restoring a building to be used by the local community. However, the work situation is an artificially created one, there are trained supervisors present, and the group is composed of young people in the same age bracket. Study visits are also excluded: even though they may be in authentic work environments, the participants are merely engaged as onlookers.
A definition of the term "placement abroad" is "a shorter or longer period spent abroad in a public or private enterprise, which has been consciously organised for learning purposes, which implies active involvement in concrete work processes, and which can be paid or unpaid". The phenomenon is often associated with past and present programmes of the European Commission. These have grant-aided placements abroad, represent the largest single programmes and initiatives, and provide the best statistical material. Currently, the Leonardo da Vinci programme is much in evidence in discussions on mobility in VET for exactly these reasons. The practice goes well beyond these programmes, however, and encompasses also programmes and initiatives at binational, national and regional level, as well as the activities of organisations and individuals, which are undertaken without any recourse to programme funding.
Benefits Placements abroad can be a pedagogical exercise. Mobility in a context of education and training differs substantially from other types of mobility in that it is primarily a pedagogical exercise: it is a tool used to produce certain kinds of learning of an affective and/or cognitive nature in the participant.
Placements abroad can be a means for achieving intercultural understanding, learning how to live peacefully together in Europe and in the world and develop a sense of "European Citizenship" as opposed to a strictly nationalist outlook (corresponding to the initial thoughts of Jean Monnet when forging the European Coal and Steel Union in 1951 – as a means to promote peace and understanding in a war-torn Europe). Latterly, this discourse has also been used in connection with the fight against racism and xenophobia. An example refers the activities of the Franco-German Youth Office.
Placements abroad can be a method for acquiring 'new basic skills' and developing 'employability'. The world has changed fundamentally in the last decade. The world is flattening. We can focus on the many differences between apprentices and placements in Europe. And we can continue to question the importance of experience abroad for apprentices and other young people in IVET, who often work in small and medium-sized enterprises with a regional focus. However. the reality is that experience of mobility provides apprentices and IVET students with particular competences over and above those obtained from the vocational curriculum including communicative, social, meaning-related and change-related skills. These critical competences benefit the individual apprentice and IVET student personally and they are also likely to make them more employable.
Within this discourse, the rationale for the activity lies in the use of placements abroad as a didactic tool to equip participants with so called "key skills" that enable them to cope with the constant changes in occupational profiles, work organization and career paths arising as a consequence of globalization and technological change. This corresponds to a focus on education and training as a motor for economic growth, and the aims of the Lisbon-declaration concerning the creation of a 'Europe of knowledge'.
Placements abroad can be an activity linked to internationalization of education and training in Europe. In this case they are the response of national educational systems to the perceived negative effects of globalization. At the level of the individual, it enables the future workforce to acquire foreign language skills and intercultural skills so that they can deal with increased foreign contacts at the workplace. At systemic level, it allows national educational systems to fill in temporary gaps in training provision by sending trainees abroad to where such opportunities exist.