Work placement abroad – information for interested pupils and their parents

Apart from a few commercial offers in this field in there are basically two economical possibilities for german pupils to carry out a work placement abroad:
Possibility 1:
Work placement abroad provided for by the school, described in the respective school programme, accompanied by the partner school. In this case the following applies:

• as a rule, work placements abroad are school events timed in the school programme (mostly shortly before the summer holidays in year 10) or
• they take place in the context of a school partnership –
  accommodation is given in host families und is based on the principle of mutuality
• teachers from Germany accompany their pupils and take care of them during their work placement
• as a rule, the duration is 2 to 3 weeks
• there is a close cooperation between partner schools and firms offering work placements
• the partner schools prepare the work placement intensively and go through it again
• the work placement is documented in the form of a work placement report
• the pupil receives a work placement confirmation
• the pupils are obliged to acquaint themselves with the general rules for the prevention of accidents and the regulations of hygiene and act accordingly
• the maximum working time is 8 hours on 5 days with a break of 30 minutes with more than 4.5 hours and 60 minutes with more than 6 hours. Working on Saturdays and Sundays is not allowed
• the pupils are insured by the legal accident insurance if the work placement is organized, taken care of and accompanied by the school

Possibility 2:
As a special exception it is of course possible to carry out a work placement abroad without being taken care of by a teacher from one’s own school. In this case the following applies:

• the work placement is carried out at an individually chosen point of time exclusively in the school holidays
• the pupils are looked after by teachers of the partner school or another suitable cooperation partner (e. g. partnership organization)
• the accident insurance protection must be clarified in each single case with the accident insurance fund of the german federal state
• the work placement is looked for on one’s own initiative
• accommodation is also looked for and organized privately (newspaper advert, advert on the Internet, private contacts)
• in a two-way work placement (accommodation based on mutuality) costs for accommodation are dropped
• in a one-way work placement costs for accommodation and food must be paid according to agreement

The Elena-Bleß Foundation supports the cooperating schools on formless application.