New Comenius projects for MCAST

Four MCAST Institutes have started off the academic year on an international foot! Mr Frank Edwards, MCAST's principal and CEO, has recently signed the agreements for five Socrates-Comenius projects for the Institute of Business and Commerce, the Institute of Mechanical Engineering, the Institute of Art and Design and the Institute of Building and Construction Engineering.

The Institute of Business and Commerce will run both a language project, which will focus on developing customer service skills that address the European customer, and a school project that will develop a European handbook for young entrepreneurs. The project at the Institute of Art and Design will focus on tourism aspects in different European regions.

The teachers at the Institute of Mechanical Engineering will co-ordinate a project that will develop a new teaching methodology that will bring together the teaching of English and a technical subject.

This will promote the use of English within the various vocational areas and enhance the students' proficiency in English. The teachers and students at the Institute of Building and Construction Engineering together with their international partners will be studying the various ways of roof building across the centuries around Europe.

Comenius projects create a European dimension within the Institute, within the classroom and between teachers and students involved in project work. They also adhere to the college's mission statement in that they provide students with "a professional education and training with an international dimension".