EU-funded project news updates

A round-up of news and updates on various EU-sponsored projects and related overseas meetings that schools and other local educational institutions have taken part in with the help of funding allocated by the Maltese EU Programmes Agency (EUPA).

€265,000 for Mcast in 09-10

The Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (Mcast) has been a major beneficiary of EU funding under various educational programmes such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Erasmus, Comenius, Grundtvig and Youth in Action. In the 2009-10 academic year, Mcast received nearly €265,000 in EU funds, a sharp increase compared to the previous academic year.

The number of students and staff members benefitting between June 2009 and May 2010 also increased to 166, a 58 per cent rise over the same period the previous academic year, when 105 Mcast students and staff members benefitted from exchange programmes.

The students were able to study or work for between three weeks and four-and-a-half months while academic and non-academic staff participated in teaching assignments or staff training respectively.

Thirty-six students and four lecturers from the Institute of Information and Communication Technology recently conducted a three-day visit to the European Parliament and the other European institutions in Brussels, Belgium, funded through the Opinion Multiplier Scheme.

Mcast recently also set up an exhibition on thematic partnership projects, another major source of funding for Mcast over the past few years. The college has been awarded a total of €109,000 in funding for five new biennial partnership projects involving at least 101 mobilities.

Adult learners Grundtvig project

St Theresa College is taking part in a Lifelong Learning Grundtvig project for adult learners together with another Maltese partner and nine other European partners from adult universities in Spain, Ireland, UK, Czech Republic, Romania, Turkey, Portugal and Germany.

The project aims to promote enjoyment in learning with a focus on the generation and sharing of innovative and creative approaches to adult learning.

The project's three main objectives are: to develop and share creative and innovative methods to engage learners to develop key competencies that all individuals need for personal fulfilment - development, inclusion and emplyment; to encourage teachers to see themselves as facilitators in the learning process rather than just experts who disseminate knowledge; and to encourage the development of a 'joyful' learning atmosphere.

Two project meetings have been held to date. College principal Frank Fabri attended the first which was held in Lousa, Portugal, last November, in which the plan for the project was agreed. It was also decided that the Czech and Romanian partners would work on developing a project website - www.letsdoit.upol.cz.

The second meeting, which was held in Malta over two days last April, was attended by about 25 participants representing the seven European universities and partners.

Dear Europe project

The second meeting of partners in the two-year project 'Dear Europe', was held in Braga, Portugal, attended by representatives from St Albert the Great College, Valletta, San Anton School, L-Imselliet, and other partners from Italy, Spain, Hungary, Greece, Poland and Turkey.

The meeting evaluated the tasks held to date, and planned and discussed forthcoming activities. The main task for the summer term is to prepare a class package about an educational outing/fieldwork.

This package contents will be common to all partner countries, and will be presented in CD format.

The project website is www.deareuropeproject.com.

Mcast ICT training enhanced

Mcast recently launched 'Increasing ICT Student Capacity in Malta', a European Social Fund Project aimed at enhancing its ICT training programmes. Three full-time courses are funded through this ESF project - the Mcast Foundation Certificate in Computing, the Mcast/Btec First Diploma for IT Practitioners and the Mcast/Btec National Diploma in Computing. This EU-funded training will continue to be delivered in the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 academic years.

The World Watched by Children

The final meeting of the Comenius project 'The World Watched by Children' was held in Thessaloniki, Greece, last month. The project partners in the two-year project were Theresa Nuzzo School, Marsa, and six other schools from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy (Ancona and Loreto Apruntino) and Greece.

Together Against Violence

For the past academic year, St Michael School, St Venera, has been taking part in the Comenius project 'Together Against Violence', together with a primary school in Mijas called CEIP Los Campanales, and a secondary college called François Vincent Raspail in Carpentras, France.

As part of the project a group of about 20 students from the local school have been meeting once a week during break-time throughout the scholastic year to work on the project.

During the weekly meetings the students discussed issues related to violence, whether in schools, in society at large, and also domestic violence.

The students gathered information from articles in newspapers, journals and on the internet. They displayed these articles together with pictures and other information on charts they prepared, and displayed on boards in the school's main foyer.

During this scholastic year the students held two video conferences with their partners in Spain and France and there were three visits. In the first visit, two local teachers went to France to prepare the project application that was subsequently submitted to the respective national agencies. Then, last March, the local school hosted three students and two teachers from the Spanish school and 18 students and three teachers from the French college.

In May, seven local students and four Spanish students went to France to discuss the findings of a survey questionnaire that was filled by some 700 students. They also wrote short sketches that the project partners will use when they visit other schools to discuss the negative effect violence has on society.

As part of the project, an exhibition of 10 drawings by Spanish and Maltese students on domestic violence was held with the collaboration of the Spanish embassy in Malta to bring to the attention of the general public the devastating effect violence has on both perpetrators and victims.

The local school would like to put up this exhibition in local councils and police stations. The exhibition will eventually also go to Spain and France.

Next scholastic year, the local and French partners will be visiting Spain in October, St Michael School will again host the Spanish and French partners in March, and the final project meeting will be held in France in May.

Project wins Charlemagne Youth Prize

'European CNC Network - Train for Europe', a Comenius project which involved Mcast and 24 other vocational colleges recently won first prize at the Charlemagne Youth Prize 2010 Award ceremony held in Aachen, Germany.

The project was seen as an excellent example of the promotion and implementation of the European idea - that of acting together, overcoming the limits of boundaries and discovering diversity and its potential.

'Train for Europe' was created in November 2006 and was co-ordinated by the Bad Kreuznach Vocational School. It brought together over 1,500 trainees to build a small-gauge locomotive and wagons on the Airbus principle with the use of CNC machines.

Mcast's main role was to design the locomotive and co-ordinate the manufacturing of the individual parts for the locomotive by 10 colleges in the project.

Protecting endemic, indigenous species

St Benedict College's Boys' Secondary School, Kirkop, recently hosted the final visit of the two-year Comenius project 'Endemic and Indigenous Species and their Protection'. The other project partners were a private secondary school from Limassol, Cyprus, and a primary school from Gravina di Puglia, in Bari, Italy.

The project's aim was to teach the students about endemic and indigenous plants and animals in the partners' respective countries. More importantly, participating schools wanted their students to learn how to protect these species.

This was done through talks, research and visits to areas of special importance to the local endemic and indigenous species. The information and photos gathered will be accessible on the respective schools' website.

The participating schools met six times over the past two years, twice in each country. Each visit helped to increase awareness of each other's educational system and the school set-up. The participants visited places directly related to the project, as well as sites of historical and cultural interest.

The Kirkop school now intends to go a step further - it plans to publish all the information gathered and to build a greenhouse to grow some of the species studied to further enhance the students' knowledge of various plant species.