An eight-week training course in Weiherhammer – Letters from Germany by Phonesouk Inthaxay
Editor’s note: The Recruitment and Training Programme of BHS Corrugated at the Lao-German Technical College links our “Teaching English in Laos” school work in Ban Sikeud and Ban Phang Heng, which is funded by the Angels Foundation, with our vocational training at college level, which is funded by BHS. Both are situated in Weiherhammer, Oberpfalz, Bavaria, Germany, the home of the Engel family. The Recruiment and Training Programme is also funded by the sequa gGmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development within the develoPPP program. The programme hosts its own blog.
Having sent two first teams of PH Karlsruhe volunteers to teach English at the LGTC in this past year (Team III and Team IV), the company BHS Corrugated now intensified their approach by inviting two Lao trainers of the college to join a training course in Weiherhammer: Mr Phonesavanh Chachueyang (mechanical) and Mr Phonesouk Inthaxay (electrical). The eight-week training course was divided into two parts: For four weeks the two trainers received further in-service training in the UeBZO (Ueberbetriebliches Bildungs Zentrum in Ostbayern = inter-company education center in Eastern Bavaria; former subsidiary of BHS Corrugated), where they got to know the German dual training system, the training organization, the workshops, and the machinery. During the other four weeks, they worked in the production facilities of BHS Corrugated and were involved in the assembly of machines that would be shipped around the world.
Both stayed near Weiherhammer and had the chance to visit many different cities and towns in Bavaria, such as Munich, Regensburg, Straubing, Nueremberg and Wuerzburg. But they also received many invitations from project members and had visitors themselves, among them former Team III volunteer Ms Denise Burkhardt, project leader Mr Johannes Zeck, the foundation’s chairwoman Madame Gerlinde Engel, and the vocational trainer Mr Bernhard Fuerst.
Mr Phonesouk Inthaxay shares some impressions of his time in Germany:
Hello my name is Phonesouk INTHAXAY, I’m 26 years old, born on 05.07.1991 at Nongvang Village, Hadxyfong District, Vientiane Capital, I work at Lao-German Technical College My Position is Electrical Teacher.
In the first BHS training in Germany for the first time I went to Europe with my flight experience on the trip, I was surprised and excited about it on a cross-border departure or flight notice.
When I arrived in Germany, it made me think that modern technology was full of technical and regulatory systems in all places to be cautious about living.
In the living environment in Germany, drinking is very different from Asia, because the culture of green tea is a bit dark and cheesy, but it makes me feel like this is another feeling that one day in the absence of bread.
In shady learning (job shadowing), we learn in a new way that encourages our own experience to develop a new form of teaching, practical and practical work skills.
If there is such a chance, I would like to go further to increase the knowledge and skills in electro technology to develop a better education system in Laos.
Text & photos by P. Inthaxay
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