visit from Plzen

This week we had visitors from the Czech Republic at our university. It was our turn to receive a group of students within the context of an exchange with the University of West Bohemia.
Here the SPH and Peda students had prepared a full week programme under the guidance of Astrid Delleman. They visited a number of special schools and a community school, but also went to the Hague and admired our miniature Holland in Madurodam, to name just a few of the activities.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures when the group was received in the red symposium room on their first day, a day full of introductory talks which were meant to familiarise the Czech students with the Dutch education system and internships among others.
Exchanges like these are wonderful for dialogue among students. Often they open people's eyes for the national peculiarities that so often persist but which you are blind to until someone starts asking questions about the (for you) obvious. Visits like these are always inspiring and good fun for both sides.

Anniversary !

A year ago to this day I started up this international weblog. The first post proudly mentioned that it was BLaID day. And in fact it was that occasion which gave me a push to try out blogging more seriously. I'd had a provisional blog, just to try out, so I was not a complete novice.
But somehow I felt I had no real topic or focus to blog about. Until I realised that my passion was and is internationalisation, and has been for quite a number of years now. So I decided that was going to be the direction I was going to take with the blog.
Looking back on the past year I see that there were 21 posts all in all. For a blogger that's not really much, still it's something.
For me (and others)it's more or less a kind of overview of the international steps that have been taken during the past year. A special year because it was the first year that the School of Social Work made an investment in internationalisation by appointing 4 people to be international coordinators of the 4 different course programmes and to have one overall coordinator.
A major part of the past year was spent on discussing and drawing up a joint policy plan on internationalisation for our school of social work. This was meant to lay the foundation for all kinds of future international steps on a number of fronts.
It also meant finding our place within the school in relation to management, other committees and organisational entities.
In retrospect I can now say we have accomplished quite a lot. This blog however does not fully reflect all that was done, probably just the variety of activities that go hand in hand with internationalisation.
Let's see what this second year brings! Je maintiendrai !