A report from Cirius based on interviews with exchange students, who had been abroad in the schoolyear 2007-08 informs possible future exchange students about how important it is to remain in contact on daily or at least weekly basis.
Most organizations which offer package deals where all the important paper work with the immigration authorities are taken care off, also include a personal contact person which should be some kind of mentor or problem solver when issues occur which demands more than the student can handle on their own.
But this contact person is often not ready or educated to give professional help. In the research estimated 18-52 percent depending on the travel organization have received help of poor quality or no help as all.
So even with the best travel organization every fifth exchange student feel abandoned or lost in a foreign country.
It is not surprising as the travel agencies are businesses. They have maintain a low level of costs and one way to save money is to save expenses used to educate their staff. You cannot criticize a private firm to focus on profit.
This is an important message to the families of future exchange students. Fortunately modern communication methods like email and phone systems where you can get a mobile phone which offers cheap calls inside the foreign country from Denmark enable the family to remain in contact with their child.
They can prepare an exit plan rather than having to rely on inputs from the travel agency.
A couple of advices:
Most organizations which offer package deals where all the important paper work with the immigration authorities are taken care off, also include a personal contact person which should be some kind of mentor or problem solver when issues occur which demands more than the student can handle on their own.
But this contact person is often not ready or educated to give professional help. In the research estimated 18-52 percent depending on the travel organization have received help of poor quality or no help as all.
So even with the best travel organization every fifth exchange student feel abandoned or lost in a foreign country.
It is not surprising as the travel agencies are businesses. They have maintain a low level of costs and one way to save money is to save expenses used to educate their staff. You cannot criticize a private firm to focus on profit.
This is an important message to the families of future exchange students. Fortunately modern communication methods like email and phone systems where you can get a mobile phone which offers cheap calls inside the foreign country from Denmark enable the family to remain in contact with their child.
They can prepare an exit plan rather than having to rely on inputs from the travel agency.
A couple of advices:
- Plan how to communicate with your child. Can you get a solution with a mobile phone?
- Can the child communicate with you without the host family knowing, so you can interfere if needed to save your child?
- Ask for daily updates. If not possible then weekly.
- Have an exit plan ready
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