Move Up

A/  Choice of partners

Within the framework of Key Action 1, we consider the choice of our partners in several ways.  

On the one hand, our student audience often already has a foothold in the professional world and, for some, contacts with colleagues abroad (mainly in the EU), through meetings, training courses, conferences, etc.  They can therefore act as facilitators in establishing contacts between our Institute and new internship partners, especially as our BacEduc Student Council maintains open, constructive exchanges with our teaching team and staff. This gateway, a partnership suggested to our team by the students themselves, seems to us to be a source of increased motivation.

Furthermore, we have a significant number of French students enrolled in our BacEduc and AS programmes. These students are authorised by our regulations to undertake specialised teaching placements in their country of origin. The lecturers who supervise the placements are therefore in regular contact with them: the idea of a more formalised partnership would therefore be a ‘natural’ step.

 The criteria for selecting our partners depend on several factors: 

• the language commonly spoken in the host country in relation to the language(s) commonly spoken by the students/staff being hosted the

• quality of the welcome

• a shared desire to enrich and energise a team

• the prospect of collaborative, cooperative and ongoing exchanges on our respective practices (not limited to moments of ‘physical presence’)

B/ Choice of geographical regions

 In accordance with the first of the criteria listed above, it is clear that France is our first choice, at least for the majority of our students.  This criterion seems all the more important to us as we are primarily targeting institutions – internship locations – where our students will be required to interact with the beneficiaries of educational support.  French therefore seems to us to be a key facilitating factor.

However, for EAFC staff and, to a lesser extent, for students, partnerships with English-, Spanish- and Dutch-speaking countries are by no means ruled out: we can include at least one person in our team who speaks the language of the host country and we are committed to providing the necessary linguistic support to participants.

C/ Objectives and target groups

Proposals for partnerships, focused on professional practice, supervised by the Management and included in our school's Quality Approach, therefore constitute our first essential approach:

• mobility for our BacEduc (especially Level 3) and AS students with a view to discovery and sharing: different educational methods or methods applied in a different context, necessary consideration of the cultural dimension, adaptability to unfamiliar or little-known interpersonal practices, exchange of professional ‘tips’, etc.

• mobility of our BacEduc teaching team and our staff in general, with the same objectives of discovery and sharing, but also with the aim of optimising the transmission of knowledge in training. 

We believe it is essential to be part of a European initiative to share experiences, because the combined expertise of all parties is a major asset at a time when urgency and profitability are priorities and social workers are not spared.  

Open and dynamic exchanges of practices will enable each stakeholder to feel reassured, develop critical thinking, innovate, adapt, regain strength and, above all, realise that cultural contexts different from our own inevitably lead to different approaches and that, where we may sometimes fail by working in isolation, another perspective can show us a parallel path.

Finally, since teachers have a mission to promote autonomy among their students and to turn them into citizens of the world, the need for a European dimension is self-evident.

We therefore seek efficient and constructive exchanges with institutions and organisations focused on professional practice in the socio-educational field and we are committed to welcoming ‘incoming’ individuals according to these same principles.

Newcomers could also benefit from the same services as our students: coaching (support and remedial assistance), French as a foreign language or advanced French courses, help with administrative documents, reception and information in various languages (French, Dutch, English, Italian, Spanish), etc. 

1. Raising qualification levels to train the graduates and researchers Europe needs

Our BacEduc and Social Work students discover different social practices as part of their training at the Institute, through explanations of what is done in other countries. 

However, we believe that mobility is essential in order to gain a detailed understanding of social practices that involve so few quantifiable and measurable factors: how can we make people from other cultures aware of psychological traits or non-verbal characteristics if not through practice?  

Going abroad to see what is happening there, or hosting someone in exchange who can explain to us in concrete terms what they experience on a daily basis in their country, is more beneficial.  The impact of relationships on learning in a section such as BacEduc or Bac Assistant Social is essential, and we have found that the more students benefit from interactions that they can ‘feel’ and that directly address their concerns in the field, the more they develop motivation, the ability to adapt to their environment and beneficial detachment.  This adaptability is more essential than ever, also due to the mixing of populations at the European level, and we believe it should be reinforced by the perspectives of social workers from outside our country.

Finally, other educational and social approaches could provide our students with expertise in an innovative support method in our country, which in turn could lead to employment in a specific field, or even, in the long term, to the creation of institutions offering an ‘alternative’ way of supporting people in need.

2. Improving the quality and relevance of higher education

Our BacEduc and Bac Assistant Social programmes are designed to encourage our students to take initiative, resolve complex situations and manage a team, in accordance with level 6 of the European Qualifications Framework.

It therefore seems obvious to us that sharing experiences beyond our borders is an important factor in improving our practices: our students and our teaching team will be able to build up a permanent and regularly enriched pool of diverse practices that they can adapt to their professional reality.

This will improve the quality of the BacEduc and Bac Assistant Social programmes, enabling us to pass on best practices to others and thus build a productive network of social resources, with the aim of strengthening the link between the academic world (training) and the field (professional practice).

Another area for improvement seems to us to be driven by our former students: in most cases, we keep in touch with them and their socio-educational workplaces, and we regularly invite them to come and share their experiences and expertise, particularly as resource persons or members of our examination boards.  Our future graduates can thus benefit from a practical approach that is essential to building their identity as specialised educators or social workers, closely linked to real-world concerns and translating them into real-time action.  This aspect thus compensates for the gap that sometimes exists between training programmes and the professional world.

Returning to the training itself at the School, we use an e-learning platform that facilitates student monitoring, in a context where it is not always easy to balance studies, practical internships, relationships, children, professional life, etc. This platform offers downloadable syllabuses, online exercises and educational courses, discussion forums, and more.  We have created a ‘Virtuothèque’, a kind of online library, which offers documents in text, audio and video formats that can be used to supplement and update courses or as a basis for research work.  We also make available high-quality final projects (end-of-study assignments) that serve as inspiring models for our future graduates.  The administrative aspect is also covered: downloadable documents, course information, downloadable course sheets, etc.

We believe that direct relationships are essential and that nothing can replace them, but digital tools and remote working are certainly valuable allies, available 24 hours a day, regardless of the time or place in the world.

Finally, we are fortunate to work with a teaching team that exchanges ideas and undergoes training (focus groups, teaching coordination, conferences, training courses, etc.), under the leadership of a motivating and encouraging management team. Our students are undoubtedly the first to benefit from this positive atmosphere.

3. Improving quality through mobility and transnational cooperation

We pay particular attention to the recognition (formal, informal and non-formal knowledge) provided for by our legislation: validation of prior learning (VAE) for students who come to us from other institutions, for example, or for students who can demonstrate practical experience (in Belgium and abroad) that exempts them from certain teaching units.

A member of our teaching team is specifically appointed to coordinate this task.

Some of our students who have been able to take occasional courses abroad therefore have their experience recognised for teaching activities closely related to the course they have taken (in the form of ECTS credits). This process is obviously an incentive to go abroad: to discover other practices without having to accumulate an excessive amount of work.  The practices brought back from elsewhere and adapted to our national realities open up new possibilities, as do those that we export and share with other social workers.

4. Activating the knowledge triangle: linking higher education, research and business to promote excellence and regional development

We strive to establish and maintain maximum consistency and complementarity between our teaching network in general and our Institute in particular, our regional professional practice partners, and the topics and methods covered in our students' final projects.

With this in mind, the research project we ask our students to undertake, which will ultimately become their final dissertation, must always include a significant amount of reflection on findings in the field.  The research topic may come from the student themselves, but also from internship sites and professionals in the sector who would like to see a problem they are facing studied, but who do not always have enough time to examine it calmly and therefore entrust the question to our students, who can thus coordinate theoretical research and practical application.

As a result, students are often hired at their internship location: employers hire someone they know is knowledgeable about the subject, can provide theoretical and practical insight, and can implement functional solutions.

Our school's internship supervisors are in regular contact with people in the field, and our students participate in activities where they meet employers, all with the aim of creating a win-win situation.

More broadly, our EAFC is part of the Hainaut Higher Education Cluster and thus benefits from fruitful academic exchanges.

For example, in 2016-2017 and for several years thereafter, we entered into a partnership with the Haute Ecole en Hainaut (educational campus) to provide training in the Snoezelen method and massage therapy for people with disabilities.

As a leading school, we are still involved, alongside four other regional institutions, in the co-organisation and co-certification of the ‘Bachelor's Degree in Social Work’.