The seminar will take place on the 9th and 10th of February and it will bring together sixty pupils from two Dutch and two German secondary schools. ‘Our main goal is to bring young people together and let them discuss various issues and try to find solutions,’ says Pieter Boerman, the director of Pre-U. ‘The central topic of the event will be migration and how technology can help with this societal challenge.’
Bringing pupils together
‘While the first day of the seminar will be held in Germany, where the students will visit companies and local governments, the pupils will spend Friday at the University of Twente, where they will participate in workshops on technology, entrepreneurship and local governance,’ Boerman explains about the event, which was initiated by politician Bart van Winsen and is supported by Dutch-German Forum (Nederlands-Duitse Forum).
Exchange programs
Although Pre-U is now planning activities mainly with German schools, its plans for internationalization don’t stop there. ‘Focusing on foreign students is something new for us, but we certainly wish to be more international. We have the whole Europe in mind,’ continues Boerman.
‘I’m currently in contact with our ECIU university partners to see if they could connect us to local secondary schools, for example in Finland or Dublin. Then we could hopefully arrange exchange programs for secondary schools. I believe that is possible, because our campus is attractive for students and has a lot to offer.’
