Pedagogical College Vasile Lupu

Pedagogical College “Vasile Lupu” from Iasi, Romania is a vocational high school profile, the only teacher training institution in initial vocational education teaching that prepares students from Moldova region for the specialties teacher-educators since 1855. In addition to teacher-educator specialization, our school has the following specializations: primary school teachers, educators, and child carers. Our school has a staff of 751 students and 62 teachers. Pedagogical College has partnerships with schools in the city where the application is receiving training students for teaching practice and with Alexandru Ioan Cuza University (the local university), where it continued providing Teacher Training College studies for students who complete the initial training at the Pedagogical College, as application school. The teachers and the students of our school have enough experience to work in groups as a team. They like taking part in events in which they need to collect, discuss and present gained knowledge. In Romania, the new curricula for the primary is focused to the cross-curricular approach. So, it is compulsory for our students to apply their cross-curricular knowledge to their pedagogical activities in primary application school classes.

In our school, 90% of students are from disadvantaged rural areas and the villages surrounding the city of their parents are away from Iasi. Many of them work abroad and they are left in the care of grandparents or other relatives. Most of them cannot afford to travel abroad. The project is a good occasion for all teachers and students to know more about not only our region but also understand the differences and similarities of European culture and history. The main percentage of our students is represented by girls, almost 80%.

We have an important experience in Erasmus partnerships and projects with other European schools. Our students were involved in many of these projects about different topics:

-          the teaching of English or French in the primary schools,

-          the use of e-learning platforms,

-          environmental education,

-          citizenship education,

At the same time in this project, we aim to exchange best practices and ideas between European partners and capitalize on the artistic skills of our students.

Also, I have to mention that our school is quite well equipped with video equipment (forced by online courses) and teachers (and students, as well) can use it. Our students are able to work with video/recording equipment, especially those who are interested in the oral history club, in our school. Also, we are developing the ICDL (International Computer Driving License) program in our school with our own IT teachers and staff.