IES Multilingual “Eusebio da Guarda”
PLAN DE DESENVOLVEMENTO DA DIMENSIÓN EUROPEA
ERASMUS POLITY STATEMENT
IES Multilingual "Eusebio da Guarda" is a prestigious higher educational institution founded in A Coruña - Spain in 1890. Throughout its 120 years of history, students like Pablo Picasso or Salvador de Madariaga (award-winning of Carlomagno Price 1973 for his contribution to the idea of a united Europe serching for a more peaceful world) have studied in its classrooms.
Guided by this pro-European vision, our institution has taken on the task of favouring the contact of its students and staff with other countries and cultures. We think that the processes implemented within the framework of Erasmus Programme (besides Leonardo or Comenius programmes) have to enrich their learning experience and promote a greater awareness of Europe and the values it represents.
The first objective of our participation in the programme focusess on the traineeships movilities for the second year studens of both One Tier Degrees of the Tourism Department (Expert in Tourist Guidance, Assitance and Información, and Expert in Travel Agencies and Events Planning), included in the academic offer of IES Multilingual "Eusebio da Guarda". Our aim is that our students may benefit educational, linguistical and culturally from an international learning experience. This training period must facilitate the acquisition of new academic and professional competences that may improve their professional expectations in a context defined by the necessity of turning creativity and innovation into reality. It is important to outline that the traineeship periods are an integral part of the official curriculum, and they have an automatic academical recognition of 22 ECTS credits.
Since the year 2003 the Tourism Department of our Institution has taken part as Promoting Partner and as Host Partner in a number of mobility and placement programmes in Europe enterprises:
-In the years 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009: Promotor of working placement programmes for our students and for Leonardo da Vinci Programme. Destinations were Hungary, Italy, Malta and France.
-In the years 2004, 2005 and 2006: Host Partner of the Athené Tourist Secondary School of Budapest in Leonardo da Vinci programmes. Our duties were: accommodation management, work placements monitoring, sociocultural activities and languages courses.
-In the years 2011, 2012 and 2013: Erasmus Programme for traineeships in Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, Hungary and Switzerland.
In the coming years we expect to broaden the geographical area to other regions and countries with a high level of tourist activity like Croatia, Greece, Portugal or Turkey. Our intention is to mantain the colaboration with those firms which have displayed a high level of motivation with the Erasmus programme and which have stand out by their excellent traineeship management level. We also expect to incorporate new partner enterprises in new geographical areas as far as they fit to our elegibility criteria: high motivation and excellence in their management.
A second objective on the medium term consist of promoting the international students mobility facilitating that they follow several modules of their touristic curriculum at other HEI's in Europe.
We also intend to improve the effectiveness in the teaching-learning process of the teaching staff promoting exchange activities with other higher education institutions abroad devoted to tourist teaching.
Finally, on the medium and long term, we intend to participate in international cooperation projects which focusses on knowledge and good practices transfer about sustainable tourism development.
