Report of the first meeting in Holland: Wageningen
First project meeting Qualifying on the Spot (QUOTS)
Wednesday October the 1st – Saturday October the 4th
Participants:
Rijn IJssel – Regional Educational Centre Arnhem, NL:
Joke Boomsma and Henry Soyer
Omnia - The Joint Authority of Education in Espoo Region, FI:
Sirkka Wiman , Päivi Ukkonen and Eeva-Riitta Kangasmetsä
Minster Development Centre Ltd
Christine Lester, Sudesh Jeewon and Jacqui Hogan.
Vocational School Carlos III Carthagena, ES:
Conchita Fraga, Paloma Calvet and Rosa Ware
The main location of the meeting was the College Hotel of Vakschool Wageningen, part of Regional educational Centre Rijn IJssel. The hotel and conference centre is managed by students under supervision of an instructor. For the meetings in the town of Doesburg and the city of Arnhem we used a minibus.
All participants came by plain, train, bus or taxi. The Spanish ones cam about 17.30 in the hotel and when we dicided to go for a dinner, the crew from Great Britain arrived, so we could go together. In the Italian restaurant Henry received a phonecall: Finland was aerrived. Paivi from Finland was still busy with her exchange students and she arrived late in the evening. So before midnight everbody was “in”.
Thursday, October 2nd 2008
Welcome The meeting was opened by Wouter Groothedde, director contract activities and programme director of our APL plus centre. He wished us a fruitful cooperation the next two years and a lot of results, useful for implementing APL and tailor made training in collaboration with companies.
He presented an English folder and gave a short introduction of the Rijn IJssel with a large PowerPoint ( 14 mB).
Right click the link, choose "save target as" choose a location and "OK" .
You can play it with Media Player
Introducing ourselves , our institute and what we do on APL, working with companies on specific training and so on.
PowerPoint Presentation: ( beware! : these PowerPoints can be very large, so have patience!)
Rijn IJssel – Regional Educational Centre Arnhem, NL
Omnia - The Joint Authority of Education in Espoo Region, FI: the small one (7 slides)
Omnia - The Joint Authority of Education in Espoo Region, FI: the large one (15 slides)
Minster Development Centre Ltd
Vocational School Carlos III Carthagena, ES:
We have received folders of the institutions and scans are available:
Folder Rijn IJssel – Regional Educational Centre Arnhem, NL
Folder Omnia - The Joint Authority of Education in Espoo Region, FI: A4
Folder Omnia - The Joint Authority of Education in Espoo Region, FI: small booklet
Folder Vocational School Carlos III Carthagena, ES:
Fine-tuning the project plan
Is the format from the project plan still valid
We concluded that the changed number of participant ( 4 instead of 7 partners) makes a difference. We will decrease the number of meetings: each participant will host one meeting and the coordinator (the Netherlands) will host an extra meeting, the final one.
What are the specific subjects we want to target?
- Value of APL for…… Great Britain (title and description will follow soon).
- Methodologies………. Finland (title and description will follow soon).
- Quality control………. Spain (title and description will follow soon).
- Staff training ……….. Netherlands (title and description will follow soon).
Number of meetings, relating to the content and number of mobility’s
We will decrease the number of project meetings to 5. The targeted number of mobility’s will be 12, Rijn IJssel will host two meetings and will hence attend only 3 project meetings abroad. Probably they will decrease the number of mobility’s.
Combining the subjects with meetings, locations and dates.
Ø Great Brittan 16-18 of March 2009
Ø Finland (5) – 6 – 7 - (8) of October 2009
Ø Spain 25 – 26 27 of January 2010
Ø Netherlands April 2010
What do we have to do together and on what budget.
The cost of the domain name and website hosting will be shared by the partners. When it is necessary to rent a minibus for local transport the costs will also be shared. Other costs to be shared have to be discussed beforehand. All other costs, e.g. meals, drinks and social programme are for the own budget.
Sudesh offered web mastering the site !
Visiting good practice 2 Switch Doesburg
We went by minibus to the small city of Doesburg ( aprox 30 km from Wageningen) to visit the cooperation between Rijn IJssel and a company. This powerPoint gives an impression but isn’t used at the actual visit. Christine made a report.
Dinner
Was prepared and served by students of the college.
The manager was a third year student and the waiters and cooks second year students.
It was a tasty meal.
Friday, October 3 rd 2008
National Knowledge Centre on APL, by Margriet Spoelstra
The Knowledge Centre plays a key role in the thinking about APL, implementing it and the policies in Holland. We asked them to give a presentation to address, among others, the following topics.
· What is KC EVC
· Position APL in the Netherlands ( including covenant)
· Relevant European developments on APL
· The Dutch quality code on APL and it implementation
It gave an extensive overview and some topic will have to be discussed in later meetings.
Ø The relevance of the European common framework of vocational training for “us”
Ø The “common European principles” and the “common European guidelines”
o These document will be placed on this website.
Creating an APL centre Arnhem by Henry Soyer
· A Dutch colleague institute could not make it so Rijn IJssel presented its own experiences.
· The experiences of Rijn IJssel
· Important is the close relation between the qualification structure and the APL procedures. A small part of the in English translated qualification structure ”health & care level 2 ( blow the level of a nurse) gives an impression
Lunch in the reastaurant of our partner “Le Grand Royal”
Meeting with counterpart.
· Finland: Anja Hagenaars, principal Economy and Beauty Care ( and former director Education)
· Spain: Leo Smid, head of studies Business Administration, commercial studies and Secretarial studies
· Great Britain: René Dopper, project manager Entrepreneurship and account manager
Christine made a report of the “general part”. The discussions were considered valuable and could have a real follow up!
Three really crazy days in “the Bijenkorf”
We hade a “spare moment’ so everybody could visit the shopping area in Arnhem. A very famous store had its annual sale “de drie doldwaze dagen”. Every Dutchman will recognize the big and very yellow plastic shopping bag that our group was carrying…..
Final group meeting , wrapping up
We were really tired at the end so we had a short meeting
Certificates were presented but had the wrong date L
Rijn IJssel will bring new ones to Great Britai n……
The PowerPoint presentation that summarised everything disappeared in the digital void…..
The logo’s and other digital material can be sent to webmaster.
( these will be placed on the web in directory www.quots.eu/logos )
There are the following email addresses and groups:
info@quots.eu -> Henry
webmaster@qouts.eu -> Sudesh and Henry
partners@quots.eu -> minster.developm@btconnect.com, concepcion.fraga@educarm.es, paivi.ukkonen@omnia.fi, h.soyer@rijnijssel.nl, j.boomsma@rijnijssel.nl, sirkka.wiman@omnia.fi, eeva-riitta.kangasmetsa@omnia.fi
Dinner
As Holland has a colonial past, we have al lot of restaurant with an Indonesian cuisine.
But the taste is adapted to the Dutch. It was more than enough and again….. tasty.
Saturday, October 4th 2008
At ten we went to the combined Nature Reserve and art collection in
National Park “de Hoge Veluwe” .
including: Museum “Kröller-Muller”
The idea was to see red deer. The mating season was at its peak but it seems that deer like to mate in the evening…… Picasso and van Gogh were at home but one should plan a couple of hours in the museum. But anyway we enjoyed a few nice hours with pleasant company! At about two we went together to Amsterdam were we dropt GB and FI at the railway station for a short visit to the centre. They all left at Saturday by plane. The Spanish were brought to their hotel so they could fresh up and have an extended stay in Holland. Everybody had a safe journey home.