BUILDING EUROPEAN LINKS IN LISBON

During a rainy week in March, my colleague Mrs Gardin and I were greeted by the sunny welcome of our colleagues at the Magestil Fashion school in Lisbon.

The school is a private institution and was founded in 1989 in response to a lack of professional training for 15-20 year olds in the state system. Its founding vision was to motivate students by working on fashion design whilst enabling them to consolidate their education through the continued study of core subjects.

The model proved successful and was extended to other specialties over the years such as Photography, Marketing & Communication. The students are chosen on the basis of their motivation and are not penalised by any lack of financial resources. There are grants and bursaries available.

The interdisciplinary approach focusing around specific projects has taken on a distinctively European colour since the school’s accreditation to Erasmus. The teachers encourage their students to participate in European competitions and have had an impressive degree of success.

The prize winning teams have collected their trophies in various EU capitals thereby discovering other cultures and mixing with young Europeans of their age. This link building is cemented conceptually by the teachers who position themselves as European citizens without diluting their Portuguese specificity. We attended one lecture on European law where we heard much praise for President Macron…

This 5 day experience of job-shadowing was very rich both personally and professionally. We returned with promises of visits from our Portuguese colleagues and with an energised and diversified approach to our pedagogical practices.