Islande

The Leonardo da Vinci programme has been very popular in Iceland. There was however a drastic drop in the interest of students and teaching professionals in 2006 and 2007 (contractual year 2006), due to the economic boom Iceland went through at the time. Since then, interest has been growing again. Nordplus is a programme which covers the Nordic (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Aaland) and Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). Schools (including VET schools) can apply for funding for a group of students, accompanied by a teacher, to study in another country for 1-3 weeks.
 

For these reasons mentioned above, the most common form of VET taken abroad is workplace training which shortens the time taken at an Icelandic workplace. Participation in transnational support programme also assists students with covering some of the costs. For VET students, two such programmes are available; Leonardo da Vinci and Grants from the Nordic Counsel of Ministers (see below). Nordplus grants are available for groups (teachers and students) to go on exchange visits of 1-3 weeks, but in recent years, no applications have been submitted for such stays for VET students and their teachers. No official arrangements exist to secure work placements for transnational mobility. Each school which wishes to send its students abroad for workplace training must find such workplaces and make the necessary arrangements.
 

The funding for mobility schemes comes primarily from NGO’s followed by ministries. The ministries do not implement any of the projects themselves but delegate this task to other institutions – public national agencies, one NGO and one private company.  Exchange and mobility between the Scandinavian countries receives special attention as 5 schemes are financed by the Nordic Council of Ministries.
Most work placement programs are run with grants from the Leonardo da Vinci programme.