INTER-INSTITUTIONAL LANGUAGE COURSES

• LANGUAGES AND LEVELS
• DATES AND DURATION OF THE COURSES
• CRITERIA WHICH DETERMINE THE ORGANISATION OF A COURSE
• PRIORITIES
• PLACEMENT TESTS
• ADMISSION CRITERIA
• PROCEDURE FOR ENROLMENT
• SECRETARIAT OF THE INTER-INSTITUTIONAL LANGUAGE COURSES

The Training Services of the European Institutions are jointly organising intensive summer courses. This will enable participants to complete a level in either two or three weeks.

In order to make best use of the available resources, only those languages most requested will be offered as intensive courses.

Of course, the complete range of European Union and candidate country languages will be offered as weekly and bi-weekly courses again from September onwards.

LANGUAGES AND LEVELS 

The six Community languages offered below represent 86 % of received applications, according to statistics for the year 2002.

• Languages: German (DE), English (EN), Spanish (ES), French (FR), Italian (IT), Dutch (NL)
• Levels: from 1 to 6
• Important : for the Dutch, Italian and Spanish courses, only applications submitted by a DG or a Service will be accepted.

NEW :

• In anticipation of the enlargement, we propose, for the first time, intensive summer courses in the applicant country languages: BG (Bulgarian), CS (Czech), ET (Estonian), HU (Hungarian), LV (Latvian), LT (Lithuanian), PL (Polish), RO (Rumanian), SK (Slovak), SL (Slovenian), Turkish (TR)
• Level : beginners
• Only applications submitted by a DG or a Service will be accepted.
• Attention: these courses will be organised on the basis of 4 hours a day during 3 weeks (morning or afternoon). The dates of the session could be different from the 2 sessions foreseen (see below), according to the teachers' availability. You will be informed in due time.
• The courses will be organised provided that there are sufficient resources and sufficient participants.

DATES AND DURATION OF THE COURSES

Two sessions will be organised 

N.B. Several courses of levels 3 or 4 in French only could be organised during the second session if necessary.

CRITERIA WHICH DETERMINE THE ORGANISATION OF A COURSE

The elements determining the decision on whether to organise a course or not are as follows:

1. Available financial resources (the budget is determined at the beginning of the year at an inter-institutional level)
2. The number of places available (maximum 80 summer intensive courses in total)
3. A sufficient number of participants (minimum 8 applications)

PRIORITIES

Taking the above into account, it is evident that all applications cannot be satisfied and so the following priorities will be applied (in order):

• 1st priority: applications in the interest of the service for those who are not already enrolled in a standard bi-weekly course
• 2nd priority: applications in the interest of the service for those who are already enrolled in a standard bi-weekly course
• 3rd priority: applications in the interest of the individual for those who are not already enrolled in a standard bi-weekly course
• 4th priority: applications in the interest of the individual for those who are already enrolled in a standard bi-weekly course

PLACEMENT TESTS

For people whose level in the language requested is not known, placement tests will be organised from 7 April to 11 April 2003, from 28 April to 30 April 2003 and from 5 May to 8 May 2003. An invitation will be sent in due course.

ADMISSION CRITERIA

Applicants must :

• be either an official, a temporary, auxiliary or local agent, a seconded national expert (SNE) at the closing date for applications and during the course;
• not be in receipt of an invalidity pension, on leave on special grounds, on sick leave or on maternity leave, or if they are working part-time not attend the course outside their working time.
• never have participated in a specialised or specific course in the language requested (or not have been assessed as being of a higher level than level 6 in the placement test).

Reminder :

• Each student may only apply for one single course per semester
• Spouses of officials and former officials are not allowed as these courses are principally aimed for the specific needs of the DGs, to give access to language training for statutory members of staff who cannot attend such courses during the academic year and/or to accelerate the completion of the cycle.

PROCEDURE FOR ENROLMENT

All applications for an intensive course must be on the basis of a specific application even if the applicant is already attending a standard twice-weekly course. The application must be signed by the Head of Unit and by the Training Coordinator of the DG or the Service concerned.

All applications must be made only via SYSLOG at http://www.cc.cec/di/syslog_formation/home/formation.cfm?langue=EN. The DG ADMIN will deal with your application only AFTER the electronic validation done by the Training Coordinator of your DG/Service (list of Training Coordinators is at http://www.cc.cec/guide/forma_b/171.htm).

If the participant passes the examination at the end of the intensive course :

• Those who are not enrolled in a standard bi-weekly course and wish to continue classes in that language must submit a new application for the next session of standard bi-weekly courses in Syslog by 28 March 2003 (deadline for the 1st semester 2003/2004).
• Those who are already attending a standard twice-weekly course will be automatically enrolled at the next level when the courses restart (except for specialised courses where a new application is needed). Attention : for these persons, the invitation to the 2003 intensive summer course will be sent at the beginning of July 2003 (after the finish of the standard bi-weekly course). Also, the invitation to the 1st semester (2003/2004) of the standard bi-weekly courses (which start at mid-September 2003) will be sent at the beginning of September 2003 (after the end of the summer intensive course 2003). This is because we must know the end of course results before we can place those following standard bi-weekly courses in the right level.

Deadline for entering applications into Syslog Web Formation:

14 March 2003.

Everything is in place to ensure rapid access to precise information about the progress of your application. Please, first consult SYSLOG WEB FORMATION (http://www.cc.cec/di/syslog_formation/home/formation.cfm).

Nevertherless, you will be informed of the outcome of your application by 20 May 2003 at the latest. Because of the limited human resources available in our team, no information can be sent out to you before this date.

SECRETARIAT OF THE INTER-INSTITUTIONAL LANGUAGE COURSES