Longer term work placements to develop skills and competencies which align with current working practices
'Malaga International Management experience' is a two-year Key Action 1 Vocational education and training project supporting the transnational mobility of 20 learners. It involves courses such as Hospitality, Travel and Tourism, Events Management and Business. Learners participate in long term work placements that will develop skills and competencies appropriate to their chosen vocational area and complement their existing programme. Bury College is an outstanding FE college based in North Manchester with a local and national reputation for excellence, supporting over 1400 students on apprenticeship programmes each year.
Hotel traineeships in Malaga will help develop vocational skills and competencies and better understand current working practices. All hotels have four or five star ratings and learners work across various departments including reception, admin, marketing, management, entertainment, events, housekeeping, bar, restaurant and kitchen. The 20 participants undertake a placement in Spain for 60 days, with one accompanying person supporting the group for 14 days.
Before going abroad
Bury College has put in place a number of techniques to encourage participation and ensure participants get the most out of their experience:
- Teachers held sessions for parents to come in and discuss their concerns or questions to encourage them to allow their children to take part;
- Participants from previous projects shared their first-hand experiences with potential participants;
- Teachers went to Malaga to confirm the types of roles participants would be given and check standards of their accommodation to ensure their well-being;
- The participants are set a task before their mobility to provide learners with an opportunity to identify propose and appraise a negotiated management or business issue. This helps to develop employability skills and competences required within the tourism and hospitality sector;
- Online Linguistic Support proved very beneficial for participants and provided opportunity to get to know each other before the placement.
During the placement
Recruiting enough skilled people is a challenge in the tourism and hospitality sector. By 2020, the tourism sector needs to recruit a further 843,800 people. Therefore it is important those planning to enter the industry have the appropriate skills. The skills which are developed during the placement include communication, decision making, time management, problem solving, organisational, independent learning and living, confidence mixing with peers and language skills.
You can only learn so much in the classroom but going on a placement really opens your eyes. - Natalie Dixon, mobility participant
Participant perspective
Natalie, a learner involved in a previous mobility project at Bury College, shared a presentation of her experience during one of our Learning Networks events. Natalie explained 75% of the participants taking part had never had a job before, but the broad range of skills they developed during the placement has helped them gain employment. Approximately 80% of the students that joined the placement with Natalie are now employed in a tourism related job. She described how the opportunity had given her the confidence to present her experience and also explained the challenges the college can face regarding participants.
The College supported people before their placement and work experience by preparing them for supervision, team working and developing participants’ cultural awareness and confidence.
Find out how to share your best practices at a future learning networks event.
