College of Nyíregyháza has been developing its international relations in the past decade and – among others – the biggest program that helped the institution to increase its international partnerships was/is the Erasmus program. Our college is one of the biggest higher education institutions in the region. During the years the variety of the partners became an important strategy of the college. We have had Erasmus Bilateral Agreements with partners for more than ten years from Western European countries like the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Austria and we still have active student and staff mobility exchanges with them. Recently we chose many of our partners from the neighbouring countries, since it became a necessity to establish cross-border relations, which is important not only regarding the Erasmus mobility, but other projects that help our nations to “think together”. We also opened to countries like Turkey and these partnerships work well too. We choose our partners by discussing first the areas that we both have and considering whether we can implement the student mobility. Due to many changes that happen nowadays in the higher education systems all over Europe, we revise the Erasmus Agreements with our partners on a yearly basis and we try to widen our cooperation rather than cancel the already signed agreements.

The most important objectives regarding the Erasmus mobility are mainly to give to our students the possibility to study or do their practical period in another country, at another university, to broaden their thinking and practice their foreign language knowledge. Another very important objective is to establish and preserve a competitive knowledge in order to integrate and give to our students the equal opportunity on the European labour market. In recent years we successfully attracted the disabled students to participate in this program with establishing an excellent cooperation with the Equal Opportunity Group of the college and our aim is to help more of these students to participate in the program. We have a special system for these students, since we have to take into account each and every student’s special needs abroad.

The main target groups of our mobilities are the short cycle, first and second cycle students. Our aim is to increase the number of outgoing and incoming students each year. The students of the college are very much interested in the practical placements. They find it very useful because they can use this experience in their future carrier. This is another objective of our institution: to help more students in going to a company or enterprise and gain the experience needed in the field they study at our institution. It is important that they experience the practical side of what they study and see how they can use their gained knowledge at their future workplace. The staff mobility is also important and we have lots of interest from our staff members, but also the number of incoming staff increased a lot during the past years.

Our college has a well known tradition in teacher training. Many of our incoming students and teachers are interested in studying and teaching at our two Practice Schools, get to know the teaching methods, how we integrate children with special needs at the school etc.

Overall, the Erasmus strategy of College of Nyíregyháza is to insure the highest quality of study and placement for the outgoing and incoming students and staff, visibility and promotion of the program, non-discrimination and equal opportunities for all participants in the Erasmus program.