Abstract:

The Secondary Technical School of Transport in Trnava, Slovakia, is a supra-regional secondary school providing its students with higher secondary education in technical fields of transport, operation, economics, telecommunications and electrical engineering. As opposed to Slovak secondary vocational schools which offer their students more practical classes on regular basis throughout the school year, secondary technical schools students do not have as many possibilities to test their theoretical knowledge in practical training. Although the second- and third-year students of this particular technical school complete a continuous two-week on-the-job training in late May and early June due to contracts with companies like Slovak Telekom, Siemens, Peugeot or Slovak Railways and students of some fields of study have a day of practical lessons every other week, for some students and also parents it is still not sufficient. However, it should be pointed out that Slovak secondary technical schools are primarily more academic than secondary vocational schools and take into account a considerable number of students who would like to enrol at university.

As a result of lower distribution of practical classes, some teachers of technical subjects at the school found it beneficial to enable their students acquire more practical skills abroad by joining one of the Erasmus+ projects, namely Learning Mobility of Individuals. The school has been a part of the project since 2016 and arranged two-week on-the-job trainings for some third-year students in Czech cities of Olomouc and Havířov. The last project the school was involved in was in December 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic when teachers and students from a Spanish secondary school Aretxabaleta Lanbide Eskola accepted an invitation for a two-week stay in Trnava and were offered to attend the Slovak school’s technical classes.

Both the Slovak students and teachers rate these exchange programmes as an invaluable experience and would therefore like to share their views on the Erasmus+ project. Our paper focuses on a more detailed description of the preparation of the particular exchange programmes in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 including students’ work experience in foreign companies. We also discuss the project’s indisputable benefits as well as some drawbacks and introduce ideas for further possible cooperation.

Keywords:

Erasmus+, exchange programme, secondary technical school, experiences, benefits.