Foreign experience should be a compulsory part of all study programmes

You have recently returned from Erasmus in Portugal, from the University of Madeira (Universidade da Madeira). What impressed you most about the university and what would you like to bring to our faculty?

It was a very good experience. My stays abroad usually give me a unique insight into the background of universities. I get to learn about their curriculum offerings, get to know their cultural background and visit the environment of the university where we send our students. I find out if they have a canteen, how many classrooms they have and what kind of on-campus experience students can have. I try to arrange my Erasmus so that I also visit a primary school where the students are doing their work experience. I also go to seminars and sometimes I learn local vocabulary that I can pass on to the students. At university level, I am looking for collaboration on projects, research and other areas and I am also interested in everything about student mobility. Where students go and what they can experience. It makes it easier for me to introduce the university to someone and it's better for the students if I know how the university works and what to look out for. I can then give them better advice on what to arrange.

What is your personal opinion on the importance of internationalization for our faculty and students?

One of the main pillars of the faculty and the university is to expose our students to a different context of education and culture. To open the door to the world, not to stay in the stereotypes we know, but to go out and experience something. To step out of their comfort zone and gain new experiences. Internationalization for me means learning about another world, whether it is virtual mobility, reading foreign literature, watching videos about the workings of other education systems, or sharing and finding best practices. Faculty have strategic goals and concrete steps to fulfill them. We want every degree program to have a mandatory internationalization component, which can be fulfilled through virtual mobility, a trip abroad, or participation in a conference or summer school. In this way, we encourage international experiences. With the Department of International Relations and Internationalization, we seek new opportunities for scholarships and support for academics and students. We want to make internationalization a natural part of our lives, not just an extra compulsory task.

How do you perceive the Faculty's foreign partners?

The cooperation is rather departmental. Each department has its partners with whom it cooperates the most. At the faculty level, we cooperate more with universities that are among the top 300 in the rankings or have a certain tradition. For example, the University of Bologna, our faculty also has a memorandum with a university in Taiwan and Texas, but we are not limited to the closest countries or Europe.

How is the interest of foreign students to study at PED MUNI developing?

In the long term, we have the highest number of students from Spain, which is due to the fact that we have attractive subjects for them to study and we are a good location for exploring the whole of Europe. Brno is a student city and the faculty offers many opportunities beyond education, including internships. We also have a number of students from non-European countries, such as Taiwan, Texas and Japan.

The Faculty is a member of the ETEN (European Teacher Education Network). What does this membership mean for the Faculty?

ETEN brings together teacher training institutions from 23 countries around the world. It offers many informal meetings and activities focused on mobility and virtual collaboration. Thanks to our membership we are involved in various international projects and are looking for partners for further cooperation. It is a good opportunity for virtual mobility for us. Representatives of ETEN institutions meet twice a year. I currently represent our faculty. One of my priorities is therefore to promote more the opportunities and benefits of membership among my colleagues at PED MUNI.

Our faculty has recently undergone international monitoring of internationalization of Czech higher education (MICHE). Can you explain how the monitoring took place at our faculty, who cooperated in it and what recommendations the faculty received?

Monitoring included the preparation of a detailed initial report and collaboration across the faculty. We needed a lot of data from departments and faculty to do this. I can say without exaggeration that the entire faculty participated in the preparation, for which I am grateful to all my colleagues. The evaluation itself took place over two days, with the committee interviewing selected colleagues. The results show that our faculty was rated as excellent. We stand out among teaching faculties precisely because we place great emphasis on internationalisation and are very proactive in this area. The committee appreciated our projects and the opportunities we offer. Recommendations for further development included in particular a greater focus on Horizon-type projects and more support for the internationalization of our PhD students. It was an inspiring experience for me, which will help me to set further goals for the Faculty in the area of internationalization.