The meeting opened with a message from Peter van Mulkom, Chair of the Executive Board of ROC Nijmegen, and Thomas Schürmann, Regierungspräsident of the Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf. Both expressed their gratitude and pride in what had been achieved through the project, namely concrete cooperation to put the European ideal into practice and make the border less of a barrier.
As part of the project, modules for various sectors were developed and implemented in practice. Four tandems comprising Dutch ROCs and German Berufskollegs spoke about their experiences with these modules. The tandem for the technical sector presented the projects they had been working on and explained that the students were very much looking forward to visiting the other country. In the field of Educational Work, the tandem collaboration enabled students to familiarise themselves with the system in the neighbouring country and to adopt an open-minded approach, which is of great value in an intercultural region. There were also differences between the training programmes in the hairdressing sector. According to the tandem partners, these did not pose an obstacle to developing and testing joint assignments, but rather provided added value from which much was learnt. The students in the marketing and e-commerce tandem had to step out of their comfort zones during the project and work on assignments with real-life businesses. All the tandems were very enthusiastic about the collaboration and indicated that they already had plans to continue working together.
During the panel discussions with, amongst others, the Rijnland Instituut, the MBO Raad, the Rhine-Waal Euroregion and the Handwerkskammer, it became clear that the work is not yet done. Language and culture are not barriers, as Euregio Mobility has demonstrated. One of the key issues remains the cross-border recognition of qualifications, for which lobbying is necessary. The value of close ties was emphasised, and the desire was expressed to get to know one another even better at a higher (political) level in order to support one another and achieve results more quickly. During the discussion, Heidi de Ruiter, Deputy Secretary of Euregio Rhine-Waal, highlighted the importance of Euregio Mobility: “Euregio Mobility offers young people in the Euregio Rhine-Waal the opportunity to work in both the Netherlands and Germany. This means that young people in the border region also benefit from a 360-degree labour market. This is not only good for themselves, but also for the economic development of our border region.”
At the end of the meeting, many ROCs and Berufskollegs reaffirmed their commitment to continuing the collaboration by signing a memorandum of understanding. The project can look back on successful, concrete collaboration and look forward to reaching even more students!
The Euregio Mobility project is being implemented as part of the Interreg VI programme Deutschland-Nederland and is co-funded with 2.7 million euros by the European Union, MWIKE NRW and the Provincie Gelderland, Provincie Noord-Brabant en Provincie Limburg.
