From Tuesday 22 to Saturday 26 October 2019 teachers and students of schools from Oswestry (UK), Moss (N), Stockholm (S), Merksem (B) and Melilla (SP) were in Gulpen to meet for the fourth time.
This meeting had as a theme ‘International Skills – Living and working in an international environment’. The province of Limburg provided the scenery for the so called ‘Euregio’, of an international display of the cooperation between the Dutch, Belgian and German authorities, companies and institutions.
City visits, a museum visit, company visits and school’s assignments were all part of the programme. Visiting the Provincial Parliament in the provincial capital of Maastricht showed students and teachers the sights of the historical Treaty of Maastricht of 1992, where the European Union was founded. In the afternoon, students were given the task to lead their own self-guided historical tour in the city centre, where the Roman, Spanish and French influences are still present in the city’s atmosphere today.
A different part of Limburg’s history was experienced during the visit of the Dutch Mine museum in Heerlen on Thursday. The coal mines in the south-eastern part of the province played a big part in the development of the region for 70 years during the 20th century and the reinvention of the area after the final closing in 1973. The visits of the Brightlands Smart Services Campus and Arion Group showed students the (literally) border crossing cooperation on technological inventions that focus on a sustainable, ecological future in the 21st century.
All the input and experiences during the visits were combined with the learning materials of the Global Competencies Course, that were developed in the previous ISITPGC project. The final presentations showed the students’ answer to the main question of the week: ‘What skills/talents do you need to study and work in an international environment?’
