The funding received within the framework of the project was used to finance stays abroad for a total of 573 individuals in vocational training, 16 vocational training specialists and 1 accompanying person. 334 apprentices completed a 2 to 11 week internship specifically suited to their profession, individual level of training, knowledge and skills at a company active in their professional field. IFA organized internships in small groups during summer and fall of 2015 and spring and fall of 2016. Participation was open for apprentices from every profession and industry from all over Austria. The applicants were selected based on their technical, linguistic and personal skills. IFA organized the travel, stay abroad, internship, accommodation and insurance for the participants as well as accompanying language courses. IFA prepared the apprentices and companies organizationally, culturally and linguistically for the stays and ensured that the internships were recognized as part of the apprenticeship training in accordance with the Vocational Training Act (BAG). 193 students from vocational schools and colleges also completed an internship relevant to their professional field that was suitable for their training and level of knowledge. The internships were organized in close cooperation with the sending schools in order to ensure they were recognized as part of the compulsory internship. Most student internships took place in the summer of 2016. The duration of the internship ranged between 2 and 13 weeks. The content of the internships were defined in terms of the occupational and training profiles and curricula as well as the individual skills of the participants and were specified before the internship in a learning agreement between IFA, the participants and the sending and receiving institutions together with the learning objectives that were to be achieved during the internship. Given that a majority of the apprentices were minors, the apprentice groups were accompanied by an IFA counsellor during the first week abroad. The counsellors helped the apprentices get settled in the host country and visited all the participating companies to ensure that the content and processes fulfilled the objectives. Contact persons at the receiving institution and IFA were available to support the participants throughout their entire stay abroad. One participant with special needs was assisted by a qualified accompanying person throughout the entire stay in order to secure help with day-to-day activities and with internship-related issues. Furthermore, within the framework of the project, 16 training officers from companies and vocational schools as well as vocational training experts participated in a 1 or 2 week-long workshop to exchange their experiences in order to learn about VET systems in other countries, compare them with the Austrian system and exchange ideas amongst each other and with colleagues from abroad. The goal was to promote the quality, innovation and the European idea in vocational education and training through cross-border exchanges. The participants were multipliers and could share their experiences in companies, schools and throughout Austria and thus contribute to a Europeanisation of the Austrian VET system.While abroad, the participants acquired technical, linguistic, social, intercultural and personal skills and expanded their personal and professional horizons. An internship abroad contributes to the strengthening of important key skills such as teamwork, personal responsibility, flexibility and much more.Experiences abroad promote career opportunities and ensure the future career of the participants and thus the competitiveness of Austrian companies. International exchange increases the overall quality of the Austrian VET.IFA is a non-profit association that has been organizing internships abroad since 1995 for apprentices, professionals and training officers. Since 1995, IFA has helped more than 7000 people take part in an EU-funded stay abroad. As the applicant and co-ordinating institution, IFA was therefore responsible for ensuring the quality and proper organization of the project.IFA works with a network of experienced partners in the target countries with whom partnership agreements (Memoranda of Understanding) defining the conditions and quality criteria already exist. IFA has been successfully working together with most of the partner institutions for many years.Throughout the entire stay abroad, there was always someone from the receiving institution, the host company or IFA at the participants’ side to supervise their progress and ensure the quality of the internship. After completing the internship, all the participants received a “Personal Transcript” outlining the activities completed and knowledge and skills acquired with confirmation from the receiving institution and host company. All internships were recognized as part of the vocational training in Austria.

The project we intend to verify bases on the present curriculum for Austrian technical colleges which defines CLIL as a prominent goal. Our school is run in three departments: Electronic Data Processing, Engineering and Mechatronics. 3 out of 7 classes of each year are taught in English as a working language, from the third year onward CLIL is installed in all classes for 72 lessons per year. This implies well trained subject and language teachers who are familiar with teaching tools, methodology and didactics. Our teachers are very competent as far as subject matters and teaching methods are concerned, but feel that they need to improve their language skills. This has already been done in in-house CLIL courses which were successful, however, they lack international context. In order to come up to the expectations our students have concerning their training and education at our school, being instructed by well-trained teachers is essential for the future professional careers of our students. Thus a group of teachers, four subject teachers and one language teacher, initiate a process towards internalisation of education and training in our school. In the near future, more teachers should take part in this process.Additionally, the school offers preparation courses for international English certificates – FCE, BEC and CAE – which are currently booked by a substantial amount of students and could as well be joined by teachers.A third step should be the participation of our students in exchange programmes to encourage their flexibility, their acceptance of foreign cultures and to understand different ways of life and traditions, to improve their language skills and thus increase their career prospects both for working in internationally playing companies or for studying at a university abroad. For these tasks we want to look for partner schools and international internships.Our goal is an internationalisation of teaching and training at our school, reaching from improved English skills over increased understanding of different cultures to excellent job prospects for our students in all European countries.

The Austrian Federal Constitution explicitly stipulated that the Austrian schools are required to ensure the highest possible level of education while constantly ensuring and developing the best possible quality. The mission statement of the Section for Vocational and Adult Education of the BMBWF explicitly addresses the area of internationalization. The goal of VET schools is, in general, to provide students with skills that enable them to take up (highly) -qualified occupations and continue their education at universities and technical colleges. The graduates of vocational schools, especially technical and commercial schools, are characterized by a high employability and are therefore hardly threatened by unemployment. In order to maintain this in the future and also to avoid an increasing number of early school leavers, continuous further development of state of the art teaching methods for engineering training and pedagogic have to be forced and applied. New technologies and processes have to flow into the lesson without delay.To achieve the overall goals to maintain or increase the high level of employability of our students and to reduce the number of early school leavers we have identified the following objectives for the project. We want to develop an innovative learning and teaching environment for a task based on digital technology, fostering Problem-solution oriented and networked action and finding a cooperation-based learning approach in an international environment.To achieve the project's objectives, we will confront the participating students with a task that shall be solved by constructing and programming a Robot from LEGO parts - like the well-known First Lego League. Constructing the Robot is only one part of the Project. The task given by the teachers includes also a research and market research task related to the function of the robot and the students must provide a simple business plan which lines out how they will market the products.In this project 8 teachers and 100 students of a total of four different schools will participate. The pupils are in the age group of 14 to 16, are student of technical schools and have already learned the basics of the tasks in front of them. Groups of students from the participating schools will compete against each other to solve the task given by the instructors. By using the universal LEGO parts and a simple program language we allow students to create their own Robot and find creative and unique solutions. Using the LEGO parts, we make it easy to construct the robots and try them out. Possible none working designs can be corrected easily. This ensures a stress and frustration free working environment which is important to stimulate creativity and Innovation.As a result, we expect innovative, new products that solve the tasks presented by the teachers, together with a complete documentation including the product documentation, a research document, a Project Management report and a business plan. We will exhibit all the products on etwinning and on our webpages to document those results.The internationalization element will be achieved by choosing the task that involves activities that involve local students, staff and excursions to companies etc. where the students have to speak English and also learn to communicate and work with people in the hosting country. The Objectives for the teachers are to be a coach to the groups and to document and asses the work of the group and provide some mentoring and tutoring if necessary and study the teaching methods in Austria and Portugal and visit companies. That way also the teacher can compare the processes and learning activities within the groups during the competition and during the normal classes. We expect that the teachers can find some common methods or challenges which are possible starting points for future projects and they will also learn some new methods an use them in their regular classes.

For the first time ever a teacher of the HTL Dornbirn wants to go abroad with Erasmus+. Since this year we are not only an Ambassador School for the European Commission but some of our students will do their internships abroad using Erasmus+ as well. To give our students the best teaching we can, whether it is in the subject 'English' or any other subjects taught in English (CLIL) it is necessary that the teacher is well informed in their subject but in the English language as well. The teacher we are sending to Ireland is already teaching some of her history and geography lessons in English and studies to become an English teacher. The language school in Ireland is offering a 3 weeks intensive course in preparation for which all English teachers and the teacher we want to send only talk in English. It is certain that in Dublin contacts to people from all over the world will be made, which hopefully last for life. Culturally Dublin has to offer a lot as well ans English has to be spoken outside the classroom as well. The competences in English should basically get better 'automatically' - as will the CLIL lessons. This will be evaluated in reflexive talks as well as writings. Should the project be successful, in the future certainly more teachers are ready to go abroad.

The funding received within the framework of the project was used to finance stays abroad for a total of 417 individuals in vocational training and 69 vocational training specialists. 316 apprentices completed a 2 to 52 week internship specifically suited to their profession, individual level of training, knowledge and skills in a company abroad active in their professional field. 17 apprentices and students absolved a long-term mobility of duration of more than three months as part of the ErasmusPro initiative.IFA organized internships in small groups between September 2018 and August 2019. Participation was open for apprentices from all professions and industries from all over Austria. The applicants were selected based on their technical, linguistic and personal skills. IFA organized the travel, internship, accommodation and insurance for the participants as well as accompanying language courses. IFA also prepared the apprentices and companies with respect to organisational, cultural and linguistic aspects for the stays and ensured that the internships were recognized as part of the apprenticeship training in accordance with the Vocational Training Act (BAG). Given that a many of the apprentices were minors, the apprentice groups were accompanied by an IFA tutor during the first week abroad. The tutors helped the apprentices to get settled in the host country and visited all the participating companies to ensure that the content and processes fulfilled the objectives. Contact persons at thereceiving institution and IFA were available to support the participants throughout their entire stay abroad.101 students from full-time vocational schools and colleges also completed an internship relevant to their professional field that was suitable for their training and level of knowledge. The internships were organized in close cooperation with the sending schools in order to ensure they were recognized as part of the compulsory internship. Most student internships took place in the summer of 2019. The duration of the internship ranged between 2 weeks and 5 months. The content of the internships were defined in terms of the occupational and training profiles and curricula as well as the individual skills of the participants and were specified before the internship in a learning agreement between IFA, the participants and the sending and receiving institutions together with the learning objectives that were to be achieved during theinternship.Within the framework of this project 69 experts in the field of VET staff from companies and vocational schools as well as vocational training experts participated in mobilities to exchange their experiences in order to learn about VET systems in other countries, compare them with the Austrian system and exchange ideas amongst each other and with colleagues from abroad. The goal was to promote the quality, innovation and the European idea in vocational education and training through cross-border exchanges. The participants were multipliers and could share their experiences in companies, part-time and full-time vocational schools and throughout Austria and thus contribute to a Europeanisation of the Austrian VET system.During their mobilities participants acquired technical, linguistic, social, intercultural and personal skills and expanded theirpersonal and professional horizons. Work placements abroad contribute to the strengthening of important key skills such as teamwork ability, personal responsibility, flexibility and much more. Experiences abroad promote career opportunities and ensure the future career of the participants and thus the competitiveness of Austrian companies. International exchange increases the overall quality of the Austrian VET.IFA is a non-profit association that has been organizing internships abroad since 1995 for apprentices, professionals and training officers. Since 1995, IFA has helped more than 9.500 people take part in an EU-funded stay abroad. As the applicant and co-ordinating institution, IFA was therefore responsible for ensuring the quality and proper organization of the project. IFA works with a network of experienced partners in the target countries with whom partnership agreements (Memoranda of Understanding) defining the conditions and quality criteria already exist. IFA has been successfully working together with most of the partner institutions for many years. Throughout the entire stay abroad, mentors from the receiving institution, the host company or IFA supported the participants to supervise their progress and ensure the quality of the internship. After completing the internship, all the participants received a “Personal Transcript” outlining the activities completed and knowledge and skills acquired with confirmation from the receiving institution and host company. All internships were recognized as part of the vocational training in Austria.