Selection of teachers who will participate in mobilities

Who is going to participate in KA1 mobilities is a question which have different answers for different schools. In some schools there are too many teachers who would like to experience learning in another country. However, some schools are so overloaded with different projects that there are too few candidates willing to go. Also, some schools have the habit that only language teachers go abroad because of the language barriers. Since there are only few language teachers, also school runs out of candidates for mobilities soon.

Regardless school situation the process of selection should be fair, transparent and well documented. But it does not need to be complicated. Keep it simple.

Below is one example of the selection procedure in case you decide to select participants before submitting Erasmus+ application to your national agency. You can easily adapt the process below even if you decide to select candidates after you get an answer from your national agency.

1. Define selection criteria: selection criteria can be for instance motivation, learning need of a candidate, previous experience with Erasmus+ projects (previous experience can either be plus or minus for the current project), active roles in other projects, you can for instance limit the participation in the programme every 2 years and give priority to the teachers who did not participate, active support the aims of the programme.
2. Define selection steps: you can have one or more selection steps. First step is application of the candidate and justification of the mobility. The second step can be an interview with a candidate and after the interview decision might follow.
3. Publish a call for application: for higher transparency you can publish internal call for application in which you invite your teachers to express their interest for a mobility, write selection steps and selection criteria. You even might ask them to propose a course provider or a partner school with proposal of mobility aligned with the aims of your mobility project. The advantage of this is that the candidates co-create the whole project, but you need to communicate the goals of the project really clearly (e.g. reducing school leaving, promoting STEM etc.), otherwise you might get training propositions that are not in accordance with the aims of the project.
4. Collect the applications: assign a deadline to which your candidates have to express their interest for mobility and collect their applications.
5. Perform interview with candidates: interviews aim at further qualifying or disqualifying candidates who may be inquired whether the Erasmus+ rules and project tasks are acceptable for them. These interviews also help potential candidates confirm whether they have applied for the mobility that is best suited as per their own expectations.
6. Make a decision and inform about the decision all the candidates: after the interviews you will have a clear picture about the fit of your expectations with candidates’ expectations and you will be able to make a decision who will go to the mobility.

​This description is only one example how can you select participants of the mobilities. By no means this represents a standard procedure recommended by the Erasmus+ programme. You can create any totally different procedure as long as it is transparent and fair.

Describe your selection process in the application form in the chapter Participants' Profile.

Remember to describe your selection process in the application form in the chapter Participants’ Profile.
Keep in mind that the language proficiency cannot be selection criteria because multilingualism is one of the key areas of the Erasmus+ programme.

In the document Important features of the Erasmus+ programme the Commission states:

»The results of the language assessment test carried out by participants before their departure will not preclude them from taking part in the mobility activity, whatever the result is. The online language assessment shall thus not be used to select Erasmus+ mobility participants, but to provide them with an opportunity to boost their level where needed. The provision of linguistic support shall be based on mutual trust between sending and receiving institutions: it is the responsibility of the sending institution to provide participants with the most appropriate linguistic support, to ensure that they reach the recommended level agreed with the receiving institution by the start of the mobility.« (p. 3)

Be brave and give opportunity also to teachers with low foreign language skills. After all, KA1 projects are usually plan one year ahead and, in the meantime, participants have enough time to improve their language skills. Costs of the language training can be covered from the organizational support part of the grant provided by Erasmus+.

Also see this blog for more information about how to overcome language barriers.

Give an opportunity to participate in the programme also to teachers with low language skills and offer them enough time to improve their language proficiency.