(Interview Part III)

Q: What are the success factors of internationalisation for your school?
A: The Tilff-project with Germany and Switzerland is a self-sponsored project. Costs are kept relatively low since we are self-catering. Therefore we don’t need to pay any external staff. All costs are divided among the participants. For this project no EU-sponsorship seems to be possible, although we keep on searching for the appropriate fundraising programmes. Our Comenius school partnership has been fully sponsored by EPOS, our national agency, covering all travel and accommodation costs. It goes without saying that all international projects together cost money: printing costs, ICT-equipment, promotional gifts, catering, travel costs etc., so clear and full support of the school management is an absolute necessity.

Q: Which lessons can be learned from the first years? What could be done better? Did you meet any major obstacles?
A: Dissemination and sustainability are the main action targets. Disseminating the goals, intermediate achievements, progress reports and future plans has turned out to be a difficult and time-consuming task. Still a number of teachers are not convinced by the many advantages internationalisation offers to life at school in all possible fields. Reluctancy can arise when focussing too much on teacher replacements and extra lessons. Therefore it is very important to inform the school population as much as possible, e.g. by means of the school’s website, newsletters, flyers, posters and also oral reports in classrooms and during staff meetings. The project achievements also need to live a longer life after the last project meeting. In order to do this, we invested in a number of flag posts and pupils of the sales department have created a large European stylished window visible to all pupils, teachers and parents. The school shop also sells regional specialties from Italy and Turkey in order to keep the project link alive.

Q: What’s up for the coming years? New partners or initiatives? A different scope?
A: As from September 2010 a new Comenius school partnership with three new partners (Germany, France and Hungary) is going to be launched. The cooperation with the Polish school will be renewed and restructured. Our pupils from the language department will travel to Switzerland as the Euroclass Project moves to Bulle. Meanwhile e-Twinning projects with The Netherlands and Turkey continue and first investigations have already been made to organize Moroccan-Flemish twinnings as well as long-term study visits for pupils and teachers at our partner schools.

Q: Other schools may hesitate to submit a project application. Or they may wonder where and how to find project partners. What advice would you give to colleagues?

A: We will be happy to help them with any kind of information. They are welcome to read the information on our website www.miniemeninstituut.eu and if they are ready to take the first step into internationalisation, they should certainly visit one of the monitoring days organized by EPOS, Alden Biesen or Stichting Ryckevelde. All links can be found on our website.