BACKGROUND AND EXPERIENCE:

The Hans-Böckler-Berufskolleg Marl is based in two cities in western Germany in the federal state of northrhine-westfalia. The main building of the school is in Marl, a city with about 87.000 citizens located northerly from the big city Gelsenkirchen and belonging to the district of Recklinghausen, which is the vice largest district in Germany. The region is called and well-known under the name “Ruhrgebiet” as a synonym for an industrial area formerly built up because of coalmining and know consisting of different big cities with 8,5 Million citizens, being the biggest metropilitan area of Germany. The dependance of the school is located in Haltern am See, a small city of 38.000 citizens, located northerly from Marl in the south of the area of “Münsterland”, which is a synonym for an agricultural area. The school houses three different departments which are mainly sorted by natural science, pedagogical science and “economics and media”. Included are classes where apprentices are educated in dental technology, as pool attendants or safety guards. In each department vocational education according to the German dual-system-education as well as usual graduation are offered. As a result the school is home of about 3.300 students. This also means that the educational and intellectual level of the students reflect the mixture of the German population and is very heterogenic. Two social workers and a special educated teacher are appointed to deal with social and private conflicts supporting the students´ development. Special classes in every department are established for refugees and students without any school graduation. Because of this, the cooperation with different social facilities is kept up. The amount of them fluctuates but is approximately about 150. The Hans-Böckler-Berufskolleg enables its students to reach every graduation the German school system within about 40 different ways depending on the chosen profession or vocational focus. The equipment is basically on a high level including high developed laboratories (it is possible to do genetic manipulation etc.), a film studio, a radio laboratory and a lot of ICT-rooms. Each classroom is equipped with a beamer and a computer and on every part of the school rooms with smartboards are available. Since 2016 the school possesses the title “Europaschule” which is given to schools with an extensive European encouragement. So it was successful in hosting four different Erasmus+ projects, has integrated European projects and topics in its lessons and sends more than 70 students and teachers each year through Europe to develop their skills and make intercultural experiences. This is also part of the schools’ philosophy written down in the schools’ programme which is evaluated in regular times and will be updated if necessary.

Sandra Jäger and Christian Lenschen have completed a project about ecology under economic aspects and represent the economic part of the school as project coordinators.

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