FACULTY EXCHANGE PERIODS — MAIN OBSTACLES AND POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS FROM FACULTY VIEWPOINT

Juha Kontio
Faculty of Telecommunication and e-Business
Turku University of Applied Sciences
Finland

Internationalization is an important part of higher education and faculty exchange periods are one typical way for it. This paper presents a case study of the barriers and challenges relating to faculty exchanges at the Turku University of Applied Sciences. Seven categories of barriers were identified: family and friends, language skills, work responsibilities at home university, lack of information, personal insecurity, too much work needed for an exchange period, and finance. Seven possible categories of challenges were identified as well: yearly working plan, language training, exchange implementation, share experiences, reasons to participate in an exchange, concrete support, and curriculum changes.

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