The European Union has made it a priority to make the Erasmus Plus programme more inclusive.
The Network for the Advancement of Vocational Education in Europe (NAVE2 ) was set up in 2018 by four large European providers/associations in the field of VET. This formal network was the obvious next step in what became an ever closer and more successful cooperation between SAMPO of Finland, Gobierno de Navarra of Spain, Consorzio de Istituti Professionali in Italy and ROC Midden Nederland of the Netherlands. The main objective is to increase the international competences of its students and staff through more mobility of a higher quality, more exchange of innovation and practice and more cooperation in the field of joint curricula.
From the beginning the NAVE2 partners also focused on mobility for all students, including those that are regarded as vulnerable or have fewer opportunities. This activity lead to a KA2 project that developed instruments, procedures and especially experience in this field. The first challenge was to get a grip on the kind of students we were actually talking about. Even though there are several definitions of vulnerability, the fact is that we all have different kinds of vulnerable students in our courses : students with physical disabilities or mental disabilities, students from disadvantaged groups, refugees and so on, and so on. Instead of trying to find the common denominator, the partnership decided that each partner would decide which group or groups to involve. The key factor here was that the other partners would accept this choice. Interestingly the focus quite logically then changed to: what do we need to know about the students we are going to host? We found that his discussion was much more useful, practical and satisfying.
Unfortunately then Covid-19 came along and put a halt to all our plans for real mobilities in the near future, but after the pandemic, these mobilities took off and the results have been more than satisfying. The change in the attitude and confidence of the students who benefited from these mobilities was outstanding. Seeing the outcomes, we keep on sending groups of vulnerable students every year and trying to improve the protocols before and after the mobility (mystery boxes, thank-you note, etc).