The ROC van Twente, located in Hengelo, is a regional training school for vocational and adult education. The school has more than 13.000 students and has set up a student exchange with our school, the vocational college for business and administration in Ahaus (BWV).
In this one day exchange project participate our trainees in retail business in their third year of education and the mid-term students in retail business from Hengelo. For this project we had to prepare power point presentations about our school, the theoretical background of our traineeship and our everyday- work life. About 50 students from retail classes in Ahaus and Gronau finally set off to Hengelo for an intercultural exchange with students from the ROC Twente.
The Dutch students and teachers were very welcoming and spared neither trouble nor expense to offer the Germans some typical Dutch sweets, coffee and tea to make them feel comfortable on arrival. Mr Gerard Stok, the Dutch head of the international department, delivered a speech and gave some information about the workflow and the routine of the day. Dutch and German students were divided into 12 either English or Dutch speaking groups and were all sent into different classrooms to present their power point presentations and profiles to their Dutch or German counterparts. One of the main differences that emerged was that the Dutch don’t get paid for their internships. Moreover, they usually have to change their workplace 3 times during their education. In addition to that, the Dutch students are full-time students whereas we spend most of the time in our training companies. They were surprised how much we are paid each month but also about how little free time we have.
For lunch break most students went to the city centre of Hengelo for a snack and something to drink. In the afternoon all groups gathered again for making personal interviews about leisure time, the money we spend and our expectations of the future. The main purpose of this was to find out more about differences and parallels between the Dutch and the German students.
After a final résumé the German students and teachers said good bye to the Dutch and went back to Gronau and Ahaus.
Sarah Kerkering