Frequently Asked Questions

After the Brexit deal the UK will continue to participate in both Erasmus and Horizon until the end of the current programs. This means that the existing exchange agreements can continue to exist until the new program starts. Students who want to go to the UK with a Brexit deal can simply get a grant.

For content support and some education related subjects there are contact persons per study programme:  

• Software Engineering: Samuil Angelov
• Technology: Renata Frenken
• Business: Lucienne Wijgergangs
• Media Design: Constanze Thomassen
• Infrastructure: Marco van der Lee
• Tilburg 013: Lucienne Wijgergangs

Was/is the Coronavirus affecting your (plans to) study/internship abroad? In this document you will find the latest version of what this means for your Erasmus+ Scholarship. Fontys Team Internationalisation updates this file as soon as new information becomes available.

https://www.fontys.nl/en/Fontys-Study-Abroad/Scholarships/Erasmus-Scholarships.htm

Regarding the situation due to COVID-19 travelling is more unsure then we have used to until last year. The travel advice of your destination has to be green or yellow when you will go abroad for your studies (either internship, minor or graduation abroad). We strongly advise to act on a plan B if the travel advice stays orange, which means an application in Progress.WWW for a minor within FHICT or Fontys or through KOM (Kies op Maat) for another university in the Netherlands. 

The final Learning Agreement for your external minor will only be aproved by the Exam Board if it is clear that you definitely will not go abroad. If that is the case the LA for your minor abroad is no longer valid and the Exam Board will aprove the LA for the external minor.

Communication and continuing process varies a lot per partner. Some partners inform future incoming exchange students through their website or send a factsheet or link to their website with regarding information when accepting the students nomination. 
In all cases the receiving institution and you as a student are in charge after Fontys has sent the nomination to the partner university. 

Need help:  send an e-mail to fontysict-studyabroad@fontys.nl (or ask Student Desk).

For your application at the partner university, Erasmus+ or Learning Agreement you have to fill in contact details:

Contact person 
Marilyn Bailey
Study Abroad coordinator Fontys ICT, Cluster Technology
+31 8850 78703
fontysict-studyabroad@fontys.nl 

Address
Rachelsmolen 1
5612 MA Eindhoven

Responsible person
For your internship abroad: the concerning internship or graduation coordinator.

For your minor abroad: the Exam Board FICT
Just use the general name and e-mail of the Exam Board responsible for minors:
Exam Board D, fontysict-examboardd@fontys.nl

Please note that these contact details are to fill in at the regarding documents via Mobility Online.
You have to submit your request for an aproval via https://examboard.fhict.nl/.

Exemption of Proof of English
You may be exempted from submitting a proof of English in the following cases:

• You hold a MBO-4, HAVO or VWO diploma (From the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire or Suriname)
• You meet the educational requirements on the basis of an accredited US Highschool diploma, the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma, GCE A(S) level certificates issued by AQA, Pearson, OCR or Cambridge, Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate or the European Baccalaureate certificate.
• The language of instruction of the secondary school or university you completed is English in a native English-speaking country (one of the following countries: Australia, Canada (Quebec excluded), Ireland, New Zealand, South- Africa, the United Kingdom or the United States of America.
• You have obtained a diploma that is included in the list of diplomas compiled by Nuffic and one of your exam subjects was English. You can check the list of diplomas here: Diplomalist _ENG_ (internationalstudy.nl)

At first we advise you to send in a copy of the transcript of your prior education. Your current study programme at Fontys ICT does not contain English as a course programme, so your secundary education probably is the last exam subject of the English knowledge. In general we count you have reached there level B2 and at Fontys it might even be higher.
When the partner university does not accept that document as your English proficiency and request an approval you can ask your semester coach or your contact person internationalisation to sign the regarding document or set up a statement, so: 

• use a form from the sending institution
• prepare a letter of confirmation (f.e. attachment)

and send it to your semester coach and ask for a statement, or send it to your contact person internationalisation (see contact persons internationalisation per study programme). 

GPA’s are no longer used in the Netherlands!

If the Host University asks you to provide a GPA:
You must provide the weighted average and a curriculum supplement with a Grade Distribution Table.
The GDT provides insight into how grades are distributed from high to low within a program, institution or country. The grade culture is hereby made transparent by means of a table in which all the satisfactory assessments of a program from 3 past academic years are categorized into 5 grades. The GDT thus provides insight into the distribution of the assessments given within a program and does not make a statement about the results of an individual student.  Together with the weighted average, students can indicate their position in relation to the GDT.

More information can be found here.

You can request the curriculum supplement at the Student Desk team B.

Process steps Learning Agreement

1. Select your courses from the course list of the partner university (if available) for 30 ECTS in total. In some countries a credit transfer applies.
2. Fill in the chosen courses for the Learning Agreement in Mobility Online and submit.
3. After acceptance: print LA with course description in MO. *)
4. Sign the LA yourself.
5. Send the LA to the Exam Board for approval (=signature) via the portal. When submitting, also indicate why you have chosen these subjects.
   Please note that regarding the OER (education exam regulations) the responsible person has to respond within at least 3 weeks. In practice an answer on your request will be sooner, but avoid last minute requests and therefor disappointments.
6. Have the responsible person at the host university sign the LA.
7. Upload the approved LA to MO when it is signed by 3 parties (by you, Fontys ICT and the receiving university). **)

*) In some cases the print step is not enabled until you continue with the workflow 'Application Erasmus Scholarship'.

**) Sometimes a partner signs the LA once you have arrived at your destination or at the start of the courses, because only then the conducted courses are confirmed. If so, please upload the signed LA by Fontys and yourself before you go abroad.

No LA possible yet?
For some partner universities, completing the Learning Agreement is not yet possible due to late publication of the actual course list by the partner, only just before or upon the semester starts. Often with partners in Asia.
So you cannot create your Learning Agreement in Mobility Online and upload an approved one before you go abroad as requested.
In this case, you have to inform the Exam Board via the portal in advance what you want to study based on available information so far.
In any case the Exam Board needs your input before departure.  

Note:
Create your LA in MO immediately as soon as the partner university publishes the course list and follow the MO steps, see above.
Provide a fully signed LA uploaded in MO within 5 weeks of the start of classes!

Changes LA
Changes Learning Agreement is a step if applicable when you want to change some courses at or shortly after the start at the partner university. Please take note that you submit the Changes LA within 5 weeks after your arrival. 
After "changes to COURSES in Learning Agreement" in MO, you create a new pdf-document to send in to the Exam Board for an approval. Just like the steps at the previous LA.  

Sometimes a partner university uses their own document besides or instead of the Erasmus+ Learning Agreement as provided in Mobility Online.
In that case you can use both documents for the approval of the Exam Board. So send in the MO document and the partners document by e-mail to the Exam Board and ask them to sign both.
Once you have collected three signatures please upload the complete Learning Agreement in MO.

Read more at Learning Agreement from Fontys.

Your host university might ask for a proof of enrolment at Fontys. You receive this document at the beginning of the academic year from Fontys, as part of an automatical process fulfilled your tuition fee obligation at Fontys. 
In order to formalize the Fontys proof of enrolment you can ask the Student Desk for a stamp and signature. You can also ask the Student Desk colleague to print this list and formalize it at once. 

Please visit the Student Desk in your building or contact them by e-mail: 
R10 fontysict-r10@fontys.nl
TQ fontysict-tq@fontys.nl
P8 fontysict-tilburg@fontys.nl  

Some partner universities ask a reccomendation letter as one of the deliverables in their application process. Preferable ask your semester coach to fill in the form or write a recommendation letter, or ask the contact person internationalisation of your study programme (see FAQ contact persons internationalisation per study programme). 

To formalize your Transcript of Records (TOR) from Fontys ICT you can create a list from Progress.WWW and ask the Student Desk to sign and stamp this document. You can also ask the Student Desk colleague to print this list and formalize it at once. 
Please visit the Student Desk in your building or contact them by e-mail: 
R10 fontysict-r10@fontys.nl
TQ fontysict-tq@fontys.nl
P8 fontysict-tilburg@fontys.nl  

If just the Transcript of Fontys will not be sufficient you can add the curriculum supplement for a clarification of fulfilled programme components. Exceptionally the host university will ask for a GPA and needs an elaborated overview. If so, please send a request to the Exam Board via the portal.

Mostly the receiving partner university will start up the visa application for their incoming students. The partner will inform you about process steps and necessary documents once you have been accepted.
Last semester we have noticed that the visa application is not handled by Yeungnam University. In these exceptional cases you have to find out how it works by yourself.
Visit the Fontys website for more information. 

During your stay abroad you can request Public Transport compensation. You have to fill in the regarding form and ask the Student Desk to finalise the form with signature and stamp. You can go to the desk at your location or send an e-mail to fontysict-tq@fontys.nl. 

Please check the DUO website if the form is still up to date!

You will receive an invitation automatically through Mobility Online. This is sent out around the date of departure. 
This test does not affect the Erasmus scholarship if you are already selected. Test is mandatory so you will only get the 1st payment when this is completed.
Students who go to Belgium and do a study/traineeship in Dutch do not have to do the assessment, nor do other native speakers.

More information about the NL Scholarship can be found here.

Some students have not yet submitted their Learning Agreement in the study abroad workflow in Mobility Online. We are curious how far along you are in the application process and the choice of subjects if that is the case.
Have you received enough information from the partner university about their application process and the choice of courses? Can we help you with anything else?
We would like to hear from you via fontysict-studyabroad@fontys.nl.

It is very important that you complete the MO workflow Learning Agreement before you go abroad. Otherwise, neither you nor we will get it right and it will go administratively incorrect in case of necessary changes in the LA. Therefore, check the follow-up steps in MO and read carefully what to do.

See further explanation on Learning Agreement from Fontys and please note -if not finished yet- this necessary step on short term:

• After you have submitted the Learning Agreement in MO, we will accept it. But be aware, this does not mean that the Exam Board already approves the chosen courses and thus the completion of the minor Study Abroad. The Exam Board can only assess when you mail the LA as pdf document to them. Unfortunately, this process part is not yet online in MO.
• The document LA can be created via the print step in MO. The approval request runs through the Exam Board portal.
• After approval by the Exam Board, you will receive the answer via an email notification and subsequently you take care of uploading the LA with 3 signatures in MO.
  If the partner university is not yet able/willing to sign (sometimes only after arrival) then in any case upload the LA with your signature and that of the Exam Board in MO.

This complete step must therefore be completed before your departure!

No LA possible yet?
For some partner universities, completing the Learning Agreement is not yet possible due to late publication of the actual course list by the partner, only just before or upon the semester starts. Often with partners in Asia.
So you cannot create your Learning Agreement in Mobility Online and upload an approved one before you go abroad as requested.
In this case, you have to inform the Exam Board via the portal in advance what you want to study based on available information so far.
In any case the Exam Board needs your input before departure.  

Note:
Create your LA in MO immediately as soon as the partner university publishes the course list and follow the MO steps, see above.
Provide a fully signed LA uploaded in MO within 5 weeks of the start of classes!

The second risk analysis is a mandatory step in your workflow to fill in shortly before your departure. 
In fact a request to the coordinator internationalisation exacly when is not necessary as best moment to compete this step is about 1-2 weeks before your departure. 

In the Erasmus application there is a step asking for the exact start and end date of the internship. You have to fill in the start date of your internship at the company.

Answers to questions that were asked in the Q&A chat of the Fontys Information Session for Minor Study Abroad Spring 2024 can be found in the attachment: Roadmap QA 10 Oct. 2023 – Spring 2024.

Also available:
The slides that were presented will be published soon (attachment: Roadmap 10 Oct. 2023) 

For relevant travel information about travel diseases and how these can be prevented you can visit the website from the independant foundation LCR.
Look at one of the topics below to find what you are looking for!

In general the partner University shall provide a Transcript of Records (ToR) to Fontys and/or you as the regarding student directly.
This ToR has to be approved by the Exam Board before the ECTS can be processed in ProgressWWW.

Note: ToRs generated by Mobility Online will not be processed by the Exam Board unless it takes a long time for the partner University to send the official ToR).

Process steps managed by FICT Study Abroad:

• Receipt of Transcript of Records, signed by host
  by FICT Study Abroad (Marilyn Bailey as contact person) by regular mail or e-mail
  (if so we will send you the regular document or a digital copy)
  or
  by you directly from the host university, please send the ToR in pdf to us by e-mail fontysict-studyabroad@fontys.nl 
   
• Approval by Exam Board
  we will check the courses at your LA and the ToR and request the Exam Board to approve this document via their portal
   
• Processing by minor administration at Student Desk
  after aproval by the Exam Board Heleen Swillens will take care of processing the ECTS in ProgressWWW
  Heleen responsible for minor administration also works at FICT Study Abroad 
   
• Upload ToR, signed by Exam Board, in Mobility Online
  we will check the completion in Mobility Online and finalize the whole process
   
• Payment remaining amount HSP
  if applicable, we will submit the payment order remaining amount Holland Scholarship of €250
   
• Workflow Erasmus+
  if applicable, by you to finalize the process steps at the Erasmus workflow in MO

Written assignment
We like to receive a short report of your study abroad experience, also intended as evaluation and feedback.

Here you will find more information to use as guidelines for your written assignment. We will use the content of your experiences and share the highlights at the Study Abroad Guide Fontys ICT.

Please submit your written assignment by email to fontysict-studyabroad@fontys.nl before 1 April after your Minor Study Abroad in Fall semester or 1 October after your MSA in Spring.