Arion Programme

Study visits for

education specialists and

decision makers

Programme for 2002 - 2003

QUESTIONNAIRE

IMPORTANT NOTICE

This questionnaire aims at the following types of outcome:

> To collect a number of practical and statistical data about your participation in a study visit.

> To give you some guidance for the drafting of your individual report. It wouldn't be right to just answer the questions as they are formulated in the second part of this document. They are solely aimed at giving some suggestions of how you might structure your personal report. So, giving brief answers (affirmative or negative) to these questions wouldn't be good enough and would not help you to reach the real objective of such an individual report: to create a basic document to help you to make the best possible use of the experience gained abroad and to share your experience with colleagues in your own working field..

PRACTICAL DATA : IN CAPITALS PLEASE

Name BELTRAMINI... First Name: MARILENA

Identification number: 02- ITA01-S2AO1-00086-1

Country of origin: ITALY

Address:VIA CARSO, 42 -- 33052 CERVIGNANO DEL FRIULI (UDINE) ITALY

Telephone: Office 040. 4194111 (extension 14) Home 0431.33065; Mobile 340.7158778

Fax: 040. 43446

E-mail address:marilenabeltramini@virgilio.it

DATA ON YOUR STUDY VISIT:

Reference: ARION VISIT N° 02001,10

Country visited: SPAIN (Galicia) Santiago de Compostela

Period: from 25 November to 29 November 2002

Theme of your study visit: INTEGRATED SERVICES OF INFORMATION AND PROFESSIONAL GUIDANCE

Group rapporteur: MARILENA BELTRAMINI...............................................

Number of participants: 13.. Originating from 7 different countries.

List of participants (names and countries of origin)

BRITTNER Vera, Dusseldorf (GERMANY);GLENZ Renate, Dusseldorf (GERMANY)+a substitute for KOHLHASE Susanne from Munchen(GERMANY) whose first name is Heinz but whose family name I do not remember.

BAKALIS Anastasios, Athens (GREECE)

O’CONNOR Daniel, Dublin (IRELAND)

MELLON Patrick, Nantes (FRANCE); DEPUYBARD Francoise, Boulogne Billancourt (France)

BELTRAMINI Marilena, Cervignano del Friuli (Udine) ITALY; CECCARELLI Gino,Como (ITALY); D’ANGELO Lauretta, Milan (ITALY); DURZU Nives, Elmas (Cagliari) (ITALY).

RAGNHILD GJELSV Eriksen, Stanga (NORWAY)

BERNARDES Victor, Funchal (PORTUGAL)

WORKING FACILITIES

The organization of the study trip proved excellent. Information about the programme and related commitments arrived in due time. Also support as for travelling arrangements was useful. Documentation about the school system of the host country arrived in advance so that you had time to go through it and arrive in the host country with a fair amount of information that could really help you follow the works of the programme and if the same could have been done even with the school systems of the countries of the other participants to the study visit, the work and activities to be implemented could have been more successful.

The working language really met my needs and moreover I had the occasion to brush up my Spanish thanks to contacts I had the chance to make as soon as I arrived in Spain. I must also add that one of the benefits of the visit was also that of creating the occasion for speaking other community languages and create professional relations with participants from different countries and professionist of the town university.

CONTACTS ESTABLISHED

Did you have the opportunity to inform the members of your group and your host

about the education System of your country and about the theme of the study visit?

Please specify.

As I said before the amount of formal time to go into detail about the different school systems of the countries of the different participants was rather little but somehow distribution of documents and informative sheets about school systems as well as dialogue in informal situations allowed me to understand some peculiarities of the different systems.

Moreover I decided to collect a lot of materials concerning ITALY (my own country) and have it sent to Spain in advance, that is before my arrival because it included several kinds of documents, books about research in that field as well. As a consequence it was too heavy to be carried by plane on the one side but on the other my decision to send it in advance gave me the chance to have a lot of materials about Italian school system, guidance and professional vacation circulate at a European dimension and I think this could be a good idea to disseminate in further study visits.

I must say that I had the occasion to speak to a lot of heads of schools, experts, counsellors, university professors, teacher trainers but very few to come into contact with teachers and students.

I would like to maintain contacts with the representatives of the host countries, university professors from the same country as well as some members of the group, especially with the ones that showed a particular interest in the study of the different school system and policies to promote guidance inside the school context.

I also would like to receive information about policies for the especially gifted students that were also referred to during our visits.

I would really like to collaborate in further activities of both project work and other eventual study actions as a follow up to my Arion experience. In particular I would like to work as a resource person for the study of curricula, project work and last but not least in case studies. I really believe that a very interesting action to promote real integration among different study policies could be the implementation of a case study project about the theme dealt with during this Arion visit. To give more details what about promoting a case study in which a frequent problem to be faced is analysed and reflected upon by the people that are interested into the matter and have had the opportunity to meet in the context of the Arion project? Wouldn’t it be interested to see how a practical problem is studied and solved in the different countries?

Please let me know if this can be done and how? I would be grateful if somebody would tell me.

Sometimes it is very difficult to carry on such interesting experiences only relying on personal ideas, on the contrary if support on the organizational and financial level is provided by European super structures and/or infrastructures it could be implemented by the people who are really motivated and more money could be invested in practical actions.

As for the implementation of a Socrates or Comenius programme it would be a very nice thing to do but since I am a simple teacher working in a regional school office it is sometimes difficult to find further people to carry it on owing to the large amount of proposals that everyday enter the office.

That is why I think such actions should be born among the participants to the visits and later supported by the different national agencies once some participants have made their interest and availability explicit.

REPORTING ELEMENTS

The programme I followed was extremely intense, perhaps to intense for further reflection.

The presentation of local policies for integrated services of information and professional guidance were really fertile owing to the new policy of Galicia and therefore the attention was mainly focussed to catch any single piece of attention. In particular what I really appreciated was the way integration is being implemented: team work between the different elements of the system is a really positive way to come to terms with the new and urgent needs of a community that wants to promote inclusive citizenship. As a matter of fact frequent meeting between operators at different levels are not only encouraged but have become part of the working schedule of integrated services.

In particular what I found extremely interesting was the visit to the provincial Specific guidance team and the in-service training and Resource teacher office. It gave me the chance to see students with different abilities work tutored and supported by a very professional team of experts. Students’ itineraries were supported with tools that came from multimedia and that could be flexibly modified according to need.

I strongly believe that only when shared design of integration politicise will be promoted and put into practice, will real integration take place. Just approving or giving money in favour of specific actions is not enough to implement quality actions and innovative and experimental modules to guide students right from the fist years of school education to find out about personal bents and needs should be encouraged. Such modules, anyway should be design by representatives of the different agencies cooperating in a mutual planning and design of the same actions.

As for the implementation of European study policies I believe that practical follow-ups to the Arion study visits where people interested or committed in peculiar fields could be given the chance to meet and work in subgroups through case studies or different actions so as to see how. inside the different school systems opportunities of flexibility, some common guide lines could be studied, analysed, experimented and further designed could really contribute to construction of a matter of fact Euroipean dimension of European education.

As for my personal experience I have found out that it is only when you are operatively committed in a group practical task that cultural differences can be overcome and different practices are open to shared. Unfortunately this requires a longer time that could be part of a follow-up to an ARION experience.

FOLLOW UP

I reported to the directors of my office and to many different teachers and headmasters of my region.

Would you like to be involved in the organisation of an Arion study visit in your country? Please give specifications about the theme and the proposed period. Also give specifications about the intended outline of the programme to be offered. (please attach description).

I would very much like to be involved in the organisation of an Arion study visit in my country but I am not sure my Directors would be ready to support me in this line owing to their multiple commitments.

In particular I would be interested in programmes that could find out common features between different school systems and procedures to promote students’ and teachers’ professional stages abroad in order to promote the creation of a bank of data and good practices to be exchanged between different countries in view of implementing a European system of education that while keeping cultural identities might be enriched by different contributions. It goes without saying that such proposals should imply linguistic support. As a matter of fact I understand that most of my really interesting experiences were possible just because I could speak some vehicular language.

Prof. ssa Marilena Beltramini (Ufficio Scolastico Regionale del Friuli Venezia Giulia Trieste)