Main report
| Partner Meeting Valcea 2008 |
| Attachments: | |
 |
MINUTES LM partner meeting 05.06.2008.pdf |
MINUTES
LearningMigration Comenius 3 Network
Valcea Partner Meeting, 5 June, 2008
16.00-18.00
Vaclav Soucek, Czech Republic
Kristina Toplak, Slovenia
Evelyn Cardwell, N-Ireland
Camilla Hodel, Sweden
Lena Björk, Sweden
Bernhard Stolz, Germany
Julia Rehbein, Germany
Meike Jens, Germany
Monika Ebertowski, Germany
Anna Farjas, Spain
Isabel Rasoilo, Portugal
Tatiana Veltichkova, Bulgaria
Catalin Soare, Romania
Ruzica Cicak-Chand, Croatia
Dan D. Daatland, Norway
Cecilie Cave, Norway
Bruno Leutweiler, Switzerland
1. WELCOME, INTRODUCTION
Documents related to the final reporting were handed out from the overall coordinator (Daatland) such as financial tables that need to be filled out, including examples of how to complete them.
2. UPDATE FROM THE COORDINATOR
The overall coordinator mentioned that there had been no new meetings in Brussels this spring. Moreover, there is still no update on the partnership contract amendment, but a positive answer is hoped for. In the meantime, partners have been asked to send in new letters of intent with original signatures because the Commission has asked for the original letters which the Norwegian partner is not able to retrieve from the archive. – A new request for amendment of the contract has been sent and is under consideration in the EU: extending the eligibility period with two months (until end of November), which will be important in order to finalise all the outcomes. It is very rare that such requests for extensions are not granted.
3. EVALUATING THE ROMANIAN CONFERENCE
(It was decided to move this point on the agenda to be discussed at the end of the meeting because of time constraints).
4. EVALUATION OF THE WORK IN GROUPS (NATIONAL AND THEMATIC)
All the coordinators gave a summary of the work done in the groups limiting themselves to what was new or of particular importance. For full reports: See annual reports archived on the web-site.
Slovenia: the national group is preparing for an event in September which brings together schools and researchers on the topic of youth and migration topic. All partners of LearningMigration are welcome to participate. There will be a short video festival included in the program. The event takes place from: 17.09-18.09.2008. Croatia and Spain noted that they can participate with material. The overall coordinator noted that this is very important in terms of gathering thematic work activities and material. Furthermore, it was added that not very much has been done in terms of updating the website from the Slovene partner lately but that they are in the process of doing so.
Sweden: no new events or activities needs to be mentioned apart from what will be stated in the written annual report from the Swedish group.
Germany: a new colleague at the University of Oldenburg will now responsible for the didactic research group in the LM network (instead of Julia Rehbein). During the present conference he presented a methodology for research in schools that is central to preparing a new joint intiative from the thematic group for research. Moreover, the Otto Wells School is participating in the MentorMigration projects that also involve several other LM-partners. A new application (AMOS – Comenius multilateral project) will hopefully it will go through. It has been prepared by the thematic group for schools in seminars and meetings all the way back to autumn of 2006!
Czech Republic: documented activities such as dissemination of ethnic sensitivity have been organized and has been added to the website. Different projects have also been initiated. The Czech group has been reorganised and is just gradually gaining strength after all changes taken place.
Bulgaria: 10 new schools have been added as members in the national group. New research initiatives have been taken bilaterally with one of the LM-groups (Norway) – one initiative involves starting up mentor activities that will collaborate with the ongoing MentorMigration project, thus representing an exploitation of best practice from this ongoing project to a new country.
Island of Ireland: the work with the manual for teachers has been completed. Several courses for teachers with weight on helping them organising better inclusive education for migrants/minorities. The group hopes to have assistance from partners and the LM network to organise this activity as a new Comenius 2.2 course for a European audience. The response in yesterday’s workshop in the Valcea conference is very encouraging. - One school has not been delivering and therefore they have not been included in the annual report. More could have been done on the website.
Norway: has been working on updating the website. During the fall of 2007 efforts to establish SEMIS: a Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies succeeded, which will create the necessary framework for continued work in the field. Have just finished a new application with weight on disseminating best practice from the LM network (and previous MIR network) and associated Comenius and Grundtvig projects (MentorMigration, MILES, WinAct). This project will be very helpful in the planned transforming of the LM network into a new association for learning/migration.
Romania: the group has been working diligently at increasing the number of members. In February 2007 they organized a local seminar for teachers as well as a seminar related with the Grundtvig project (“WinAct”) already mentioned
Spain: the group has organized an educational project in Morocco and produced a film as part of the activities (the film has recently been given a reward for best film for promoting intercultural education. Girona will host the next partner meeting for the MentorMigration project which will take place in October 2008. Not much has been done on the website yet.
Switzerland: Miriam Hess has left the PHZ Zug and a new person will replace her. The LM network wishes to thank Miriam Hess for her excellent work.
Croatia: organized an international teacher course/parallel national dissemination seminar together with the Norwegian overall LM-coordinator in fall of 2007. A new national dissemination seminar will be held in fall of 2008 in order to see and evaluate the work that has been done during the last years in the Croatian group. Some Croatian partner schools are also active in the YAM project and the Y.E.S. Comenius partnership project, and took part in a LM-supported film festival in Norway in May 2007. Bothe teachers and students participated.
Portugal: the website has not been updated, however, the collaboration with the YAM project has continued with the organization of a photo exhibition with the help of two schools. CEMRI (Portuguese LM-coordinator) will organize the WinAct Grundtvig courses (2) for teachers/trainers this fall. Four of the five partners are connected to the LM network.
Annual reports from partner groups:
Moreover, the overall coordinator reported that on the website the annual reports from 2006 are posted, and half the reports from 2007. The missing reports for 2007 must be handed in by all partners so that there can be documented a continuous list of activities in the respective national countries during the last year. Half year reports for 2008 must also be handed in. Again, it was stressed that more publishing on the website is important and this should be done continuously. The overall coordinator can be contacted if there are problems with getting things published on the website. The most important thing to do is to add activities organized under “events.” “News” is also useful to inform others about activities as is the “Info Letter” function. “Institutions” should also be updated with more members to be helpful in the transforming of the present network into a new association based on membership fees.
5. FINAL REPORT INCLUDING OUTCOMES
The overall coordinator mentioned that the network application had proved to be too ambitious, and in the progress report this was commented by the overall coordinator and the role of the thematic groups was toned down. When it comes to the issue of finalizing the outcomes the one on guidelines/recommendation could be solved in the following way: for the Educational authorities, the work done by national partners will be included in the recommendation. For the School group “cases” will be included as an example of best practice as short summaries. For the Research group they need to come up with recommendations with both success and failure included. The group of Teacher Training can use the questionnaires that were handed out early on in the network as a framework. Moreover, the website is an outcome and needs to be updated continuously by all partners. Flyers, DVD are also outcomes according to the application and work plan. Annual reports are also outcomes and need to be submitted to overall coordinator without delay.
Financial report:
The partners were informed about which forms to fill out for financial spending. They are similar to the ones already used a basis for the Progress Report. Staff and travel will be reported by the partners using the distributed forms. The overall coordinator will add the costs of subsistence. The partners should be sure to keep all invoices, as mentioned on several occasions earlier.
The national coordinators were reminded of the various instalments sent from the overall coordinator and also reminded of the change in the original budget: that money set aside for work in thematic groups had been sent to national coordinators instead since the double book-keeping proved to be too difficult to handle.
6. SUSTAINING THE COLLABORATION ON MIGRATION/EDUCATION
Comments about the work done by German partner in terms of sustainability during the conference were made. Participants were asked to fill out questionnaires and were then divided into groups to discuss different themes relating to the future of the network, such as what the qualities of the network were and what made a successful network. It was also noted that some counties are better equipped to organize gatherings. Another theme was motivation to continue the work in a network setting. Moreover, it had been experienced as rather difficult to try to increase the number of members as much as planned. People seemed overall positive to continue with an association but another meeting is needed to finalize details. The school thematic group noted their interest in participating in an association with low membership fees. The legal complications concerning a move from network to association will be dealt with by the German partnership. Also suggested from the German partners was the wish to collaborate with other networks that were looking for ways to continue their activities in the future (examples were given). Also mentioned was the fact that the multilateral MentorMigration project will try form a European network to promote the use of mentoring to other kinds of disadvantaged groups (from the present focus on migrants/minorities to other groups also).
The partner meeting decided that a move toward forming an association will be made with Germany as the leading partner group.
7. EVALUATING THE ROMANIAN CONFERENCE
The partners offered comments that included that the content of workshops had been good and the overall program was well organized, however, there could have been more focus on the deeper levels of the notion of culture and how to deal with them. To have the options to choose was positive. The transport was a factor of high stress because people had to wait in buses. It was also mentioned that it was good that people had the chance to talk in smaller settings. A negative point was to have too many parallel sessions that meant that one could not attend all sessions. The presentations could have been organized in a better way with maybe only one presentation per partner instead of many. The local Romanian organiser was congratulated with organising a good and well functioning conference.