International debating Erasmus Project

Project Title

International debating

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Social dialogue

Project Summary

The Jan Tinbergen College in Roosendaal (NL) is a public school for secondary education with a bilingual department. Our goal is to make sure that our students grow up as responsible, open minded European citizens who want to search for solutions for the great issues of our time by debating with people of all nationalities. Therefore they need to get in contact with other Europeans and communicate with them.

1st GEL Koropi is a public school for secondary education for students aged between16 to 18 years old.
We offer high quality education in an encouraging supportive environment that helps our students achieve excellence, reach their full potential and relate school experiences to real life. With a student centered approach our students develop globally relevant concepts, skills and positive attitudes which enable them to become active, creative and responsible members of the local and international community. In this concept one of our key concerns is that our students interact and cooperate with students from other European countries and exchange ideas and experiences.

The two main objectives of this exchange project are to improve the debating skills of the participants in combination with the gaining the experience of living for a short time in a foreign environment with a different culture, different habits and different points of vue. By gaining a better understanding of the other culture, one will come to a better understanding of someone else’s behavior.
Forty five students of the 4th grade from the Jan Tinbergen College will participate in this project and 25 from the school in Greece and 20 from Portugal. They are all 15/16 years old and most of the Dutch participants are in the bilingual education program that will lead to the International Baccalaureate. They are destined to have internationals jobs later in life. All participants are educated at the highest level of secondary schools.

The project consists of activities that aim to stimulate the understanding of other cultures. Students experience every day life in the hosting country. At home, they host a European student in their own environment and show them how things are done in their country. At school the students study and practice argumentation and debating in order to be able to participate in the main event of every exchange week: (the simulation of) the meeting of the European Parliament. To reach that goal, every student participates in instruction meetings and good practice of the skills needed before and during the exchange weeks.

Participating in this project will give the students a broader vue on international issues and more understanding for other nations and cultures. Furthermore they know how to express themselves in public, to participate in a discussion about important issues and the most important: to be a part of the international community. All this will hopefully make them an open minded citizen of the Europe of tomorrow.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 37598 Eur

Project Coordinator

Jan Tinbergen College & Country: NL

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas de Ribeirão
• 1o Gel Koropiou