Academy of Engineering goes international!

15th October 2013

Brinsworth Academy of Engineering in Rotherham, recently played host to Spanish visitors from a Valencia based vocational college.

The Vicente Blasco Ibanez College has been participating for several years in European Erasmus programmes. Germany, Italy and the UK are among the European countries in which 12 week-long training apprenticeships have been conducted. During the past academic year three apprentices from the college did their training in companies in London and Sheffield and one in Göttingen, Germany. Two professors conducted a mentoring visit and visited South Yorkshire in order to contact companies and meet with partner providers such as Brinsworth Academy of Engineering for future student exchange agreements. Professor Laura Alfonso, who coordinated the visit for the Spanish college also acted as an interpreter for the five day tour said -These meetings were held to strengthen and make contact with new companies. Brinsworth Academy of Engineering is one of the leading vocational training providers in the UK for engineering and will pilot an apprenticeship exchange between Sheffield and Valencia which is being planned to be carried out in 2014. Business Development Director Paul Reeves said -The main purpose for hosting this visit was to facilitate new opportunities for our apprentices to train in Europe, we are very keen to develop a training company that has international link to develop skills that helps local industry; we feel that exchange visits can play a key role in demonstrating to our apprentices that engineering is a global sector and can provide them with excellent opportunities for their career development