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Going abroad – during training?

By Lorenz Kaminski (ver.di youth, working committee for international affairs)



We constantly hear and read about lifelong learning and development, improving foreign language skills or gaining new experiences with different cultures and people. So if it’s such a good thing to do, why do so many young people pondering to go ultimately hesitate to go abroad for a placement or short term temporary contracts? What are young people afraid of and what does it really take to venture out into the world for a few months?



The green paper “Promoting the learning mobility of young people” issued by the European Commission deals with exactly this topic. A green paper is a discussion document in regards to a specific topic, which is then often used in drafts for compulsory and advisory critical levels of the European Commission. A wide number of issues and questions are raised ideas for improvements and innovations on existing systems or programs are being proposed. In order to find out why young people don’t choose to work and live abroad, every EU citizen can comment and contribute to a public consultation on this topic until the 15th of December 2009.



The green paper on mobility of young people deals with financial problems, as well as the access difficulties experienced by disadvantaged people. Further topics considered are virtual mobility and required quality standards for the young people’s mobile phase of life. “The paper has a slight aftertaste due to the intense focus on students.



Non-graduates could potentially be discouraged to go abroad” says Christian, member of the working committee for international affairs (ver.di youth). The fear that learning and development objectives cannot be met whilst being abroad still exists. It is proposed that potential exploitation of young people, for example by means of unpaid internships seen in Germany, can be avoided by external supervision through EU authorities. Furthermore, the green paper gives no answers on how young people can avoid being affected by drawbacks when they come back to their home country.



Nonetheless, the promotion of encouraging stays abroad for learning purposes deserves to be supported.

Whether somebody is doing a training, an internship, an advanced training course, university studies or has a job: International experiences increase do not only impact positively on core competences, they also support international communication.



The UNI-Europa Youth Steering Group asks for your participation and contribution to these questionnaires (different languages available), see: http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch