Pradeep Eranti
Fernanda Bajanca
Pradeep Eranti
Lidia Natalia Trusilewicz
European Day of Languages -- Learn a Language
Dear MCAA Members,
Tomorrow, 26th September is the European Day of Languages. Learn a language and celebrate the diversity of Europe!
Did you learn a new language during your MC Fellowship? Most importantly, do you know you are eligible to get reimbursed from your 'Category D' Allowance for any language course that you do during the Fellowship. It is considered part of your Career Development and EC encourages fellows to make use of these opportunities. If you are interested, contact your host institution.
All the Best,
Happy Language Learning! :-)
5 Comments
Hi Shikhar,
True. Its indeed a pity. I did my Marie Curie Fellowship in Sweden, Israel and Belgium and have had the opportunity to learn Swedish and German as foreign languages. ALL the expenses (roughly 1500 Euros) got completely reimbursed.
Not only that, my visa expenses and the first flight from home to host institution (roughly 1200 Euros) also got reimbursed. This is generally the most difficult part for any fellow who is just about to start a fellowship. Its indeed a pity that there is no centralized governance of these issues. Some of us have a "Honeymoon" like experience and some end up deprived of their basic rights as a Fellow. Indeed a pity!
Lets hear about the experience of other fellows.
@ All: Plz Share your experiences/
Thanks Roy for the information. Very interesting.
I had a similar situtation to Shikhar, in that was refused any re-imbursement for language courses.
I'd also very much like to see any data regarding fellows solving contract/finance issues with the help of the NCP. In my own experience, the NCP was not interested in getting involved in these issues. It seems to me that they want to avoid any confrontation with the host institutions at all costs. Maybe this is just my own personal experience and not true generally!
Unfortunately the situation in Germany is not always as good as Shikhar says. It depends on the host. One of the host professors contacted me to say that his administration allowed him to pay for language courses for his fellows' language courses but declared the courses as a "benefit in kind" to the tax authorities. This means the fellows end up paying more tax because of the courses. The host prof found this frustrating. He is an alumnus himself and joined MCAA. In Germany, Humboldt fellows get sent to the Goethe Institute for months of intensive courses before their fellowship starts and its fully paid from the fellowship. By the time they start their fellowship, they can already speak German. Marie Curie fellows are disadvantaged in comparison. I had an intern through DAAD (http://www.daad.de/) and the DAAD covered her language course up to a maximum cost as part of the scholarship agreement.
Indeed, if one has to come to Germany, he is far well off as a Humboldt Fellow in many aspects.
Opportunity to learn an European language is so crucial for international fellows like us and its so sad to hear all these news. More sadding is that EC does not give a shit to these greviences.
F.Y.I.
The reimbursement part is controversial, some universities refused to pay for language course even after fellows showed them that it is part of contract (the MC financial document) and there is additional money for that. Countries like Germany, organized free language courses for their students, so for them its not a problem but what about other countries where a language course may cost upto 1000 Euros for 4 month course. Also, some fellows did not get any reimbursements for visa fees to mantain residence permit or flight tickets (one time travel from home country to host institute). The supervisors don't want to help in affairs regarding financial matters as they says its part of international office and international office says we can't do as we dont have any permission. Its a vicious circle. In any case, NCP don't help for small issues and each university has its own policies even located in same region of a country. Most shocking is that even departments have different policies to pay or reimburse MC fellows in the same university. I am wondering its diversity or ignorance. As President Juncker says there is 'no unification in Euro, there is no Europe in Europe'. Its a pity.
Is there any data/survey which shows fellows have actually solved their problems regarding contracts and finance with the help of NCP, if they encountered any problem. In most of the cases, they either get fed up or leave the position due to frustration (most often) or don't raise the voice due to fear of bosses to maintain a healthy relation to get good recommendation after their contracts.
Even though fellows get prestigious highly rated MC contracts, still fellows don't get out of it completely due to either beurocracy, non-committment of international offices or just ignorances. Exceptions are always everywhere and but I beleive that we need to be very lucky by God grace to get right salary with perks attached to MC contracts even in big universities. I am not sure what may be the situations in smaller universities.
As an association, we should do surveys on these problems if they are faced by other students as well and make policies on it and forward to EC to make them aware. Or may be they are already aware but they cant interfere with National laws. In such case, we should depend heavily on NCP to train International offices about the latest policies for MC contracts. Its a big big task.
Thank you for the information regarding the language day. :)