Socrates Promoters - Kluesener-net.de

Promoting Socrates
Estonia - Socrates promotion and particiption
in “Archimedes Council“
My approach working as Socrates promoter has
been a combination of information activities and
political involvement mainly through participation
in “Archimedes council”, which is the decision
making body of all the European programmes
in Estonia. I have been able to take part
as student representative in “Archimedes council”
with help of the National Union of Students
in Estonia. In this institution I made some presentations
on students’ views and contributed to
planning of the Fall season through identifying
the student needs in regard to the Socrates
Programme in Estonia, together with Erasmus
office. My information activities targeted
schools, teachers and pupils and I have delivered
many presentations. However, much work
remains to be done in this area since awareness
about the programme among those targets is
very low.
As Socrates Promoter I have also addressed the
Rectors’ Council in order to raise awareness on
Socrates Programme. In the September meeting
I presented the need of change in attitudes of
professors towards Socrates Programme and
thus create new opportunities for study abroad
for their students. I have also stresses need for
more courses offered in English language at
Estonian universities in order to enable and
attract more students from abroad.
Of course I also had contact to the Socrates
Programme co-ordinator in Estonia and we have
discussed concrete events for the Fall period.
Through the National Union of Students and of
course also in capacity as Socrates promoter I
had meeting with our educational minister and
stressed the importance of the Socrates
Programme and need to make professors more
open-minded to accept and motivate for student
mobility. As a student representative in the
Erasmus Council I am taking part in the preparation
of the contract between Estonia and
European Union.
Herman Kalmus, SP Estonia
16
Czech Republic - Promotion of Socrates
Programme through webpages
For my promotion activities within Socrates on the
move project I have also chosen creation of web
pages as channel of information spreading.
Actually, it was former exchange students, who led
me to this idea – many times we were discussing
the problems they had to overcome before and after
their arrival to a foreign country. They concluded
that many of those problems, often very time-consuming,
could have been solved much more easily
if they had had some more information before.
That’s why I decided to create the web pages which
would provide students with all the relevant and
practical information that would make their stay in
a foreign country easier and more pleasant. When
talking about the content of the web pages, it contains
basic information about Socrates Programme,
about Socrates on the Move Project, contact
addresses of all the Socrates Promoters, list of the
National Agencies all over the Europe, information
about things needed to be arranged before the
departure for study period like visas and insurance,
list of the most important contact addresses in each
particular country and relevant Internet links. One
of the most important parts of the web pages are the
reports of the former exchange students – those
reports deal with different countries and students
are sharing their good or bad experience during
their studies abroad, advising what should be done
before departure and what after arrival, how to deal
with a new surrounding, new school, new habits,
what is worth to see, what should we try and what
should we avoid,…Even though it will still take
some time before those web pages are finished and
provide complete information, I’m sure that the aim
of establishing a tradition of the “student web
pages” was achieved and I have already received a
positive response from many students.
Jarka Juricova, SP Czech Republic