Five Vocational Training students will immediately start their Erasmus training stays in various European countries. They will be there for thirteen weeks, with a special feature: they have found a place to train on their own and have managed the residence and travel arrangements. To these will be added another student in June: student Asier Villegas, who will be leaving for Germany on a self-managed basis.

According to the Directorate General of Vocational Training of the Department of Education, this innovative Erasmus residency system is combined with the trips that the Department organizes directly to various European countries each year. These trips, for example, allowed 9 students to fly to Lisbon on April 4. Due to the confinement that Portugal has experienced in recent months, the departure is part of the 21 students they had in January. Now, "back to normal", they can stay in Erasmus in that country.

Students

The five students who have self-managed their Erasmus stays and will be leaving soon are Garazi Cía Lozano (Netherlands), Oumayma Benlali (Ireland), Uxue Borobia Juan and Iker Rico Pachon (Portugal) and Yaxandra Fernández Montero (Germany).

This new stay system has given everyone the opportunity to choose which companies to stay in. The five students met last March 15 at the Department of Education’s headquarters with Sonia Garcia, head of the Innovation, Internationalization and Quality section of Vocational Training, to provide details about the residencies.

On the other hand, the students who left for Lisbon on April 4 are: Yasmine Carbonell (Nursing Assistants), Itsaso Urrutia (Styling and Hairdressing Management), Ane Acedo (Administrative Management), María Aguirre (Garden and Florist), María Dolores Genes (Addiction Attention to People in Situation), Maider Galain, Andrea Villanueva and Alazne Larreta (Infant Education), and César Eduardo Tamayo (Automotive Electromechanics of Vehicles).

In the coming months, there will be Erasmus training outings organized by the Directorate General of Vocational Training of the Department of Education. Specifically, 55 students will travel to various European countries in April for two-month stays.

Erasmus +

In the field of youth, the objectives of the Erasmus + program are:

• Improving young people's competencies and basic skills.
• Promoting the participation of young people in European democratic life and the labor market.
• Promoting active citizenship, intercultural dialogue and social integration.
• Strengthen the links between young people and the labor market.
• Encourage initiatives to improve the quality of work by strengthening collaboration between youth organizations and other stakeholders.
• Complement local, regional and national policy reforms.
• Encourage a youth policy based on knowledge and experience.
•  Recognition of non-formal and informal learning.
• Promoting the international dimension of youth activities. Strengthen the role of staff and organizations working in the youth field as a structure to provide support to young people.

In order to achieve the stated objectives, the Erasmus + program has planned three key actions. These actions aim to enable the implementation of different projects:

• Mobility of people due to studies.
  • Youth mobility: youth exchanges and innovative actions.
  •  Mobility of staff working in the youth field.
• Collaboration for innovation and exchange of good practices.
  • Contribute to development, capacity building and knowledge exchange through organizational networking agreements.
• Contribute to policy reforms.
  •  Applying the European Union's political agenda in the field of youth.
  • Application of skills development tools (Youthpass).
  • Supporting European networks and NGOs.
  • European and international political dialogue and structured dialogue with young people (meetings between political leaders and young people in the field of youth).

Preferences

• In order to receive funding, programs must address one or more of the priorities. Here are the priorities:
• Promoting the social inclusion and well-being of young people, especially through measures against youth unemployment.
• Promoting healthy lifestyles among young people.
• Raising awareness of being a European citizen.
• Develop basic and transversal competencies such as entrepreneurship, use of new information technologies, and multilingualism.
• Strengthen the use of ICT in youth workplaces and non-formal education.
• Promote the European Union's tools for the recognition and transparency of qualifications, as these tools help stakeholders to understand, assess and, where appropriate, recognize qualifications and learning outcomes across the Union.