Yesterday was the annual evaluation of the StartUp HUB Vocational Training Centre, which offered internships to foreign students at several companies and vocational schools in the county through the Erasmus+ programme.

This year, a total of 332 students from Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Belgium, Poland and Germany and 72 teachers participated in internships at 102 companies, schools and organisations from the county. The programme offers mobility and cooperation opportunities in the fields of higher education, sport, school education, adult education, youth and vocational training. The training supports vocational students to participate in work placements abroad.

Briefly:

  • Vocational training is presented in a more positive light
  • Projects have changed lives – some students fell in love with their chosen profession, others decided they needed a change, but there were also some who improved their social skills or even got on in English;
  • Entrepreneurs got a lot of help from students, both physically and morally, as it gave them self-confidence,
  • an important element was social, supportive and inclusive character. Students with disabilities were also involved in these projects, but humanitarian actions were also organised, where young participants visited, for example, nursing homes.

Róbert Grüman, one of the founders of StartUp HUB, emphasized that the key is cooperation. “If there is cooperation, good things can be achieved. We are the smallest county in Romania, and we have the biggest company here, which welcomes young people enrolled in European vocational schools, who choose Sfântu Gheorghe as a destination for their studies. This programme, in my opinion, is changing lives. Young people who take part in such mobility programmes mature, acquire new skills, discover different cultures from their own and eventually return to their home country as different people,” said Róbert Grüman.

Norbert Béres, coordinator of the Vocational Training Centre, said that although it was not easy to establish partnerships with companies at the beginning, the first experiences convinced everyone of the benefits of this type of project. “That’s how we got to the point where we have more than 100 collaborating partners. Some of them have asked to host several groups in their company,” he said.

The programme was a useful exchange of experience for the institutional partners as well, confirmed Annamária Szőke, Director of the Puskás Tivadar Vocational School in Sfântu Gheorghe.

“Students and teachers visited us. They visited the school workshops and we discussed together the differences between the educational systems (…) Many students we talked to said that we have very well equipped workshops (…) We do a lot of things in the school and it gives the students confidence that the school teaches them how to work. Teachers from other countries said the same thing, that they don’t have such well-equipped workshops,” the headmistress explained.

“The year 2024 brings a new challenge as we have received another partnership request, this time from the Caribbean, specifically from the island of St Martin, which is administratively part of the Netherlands and France. We will expect students from there to come for an internship,” said one of the coordinators, Szilárd Péter Kelemen.

During the event, the representatives of the companies and institutions participating in the programme received certificates of appreciation according to the plan, they continue the partnership in 2024.