The group included students from Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the U.K, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Sweden.

Prof. Natsheh welcomed the students and briefed them on An-Najah’s history, students, and academic programmes. He also talked about the financial and political challenges that encounter Palestinian universities in terms of student mobility.

Dr. Read Abdulkareem, Director of IAESTE in Palestine mentioned that the internship programme has started at An-Najah seven years ago where the University received students from Austria alone. Now, the University is hosting 20 students from different European countries. He also mentioned that the programme aims to organize social activities to introduce international students to Palestinian domestic life and culture as well as offering them practical training in different places such as municipalities, University faculties and scientific centres, local companies, firms and factories, engineering offices and contracting companies.

Notes:

The meeting was also attended by Prof. Amer Hamouz, Director of the Practical Training Centre and Mr. Khaled Mufleh, Acting Director of the Public Relations Department at An-Najah.

IAESTE is an independent, non-profit and non-political student exchange organization that provides students in technical degrees (primarily Science, Engineering and the applied arts) with paid, course-related, training abroad and employers with highly skilled, highly motivated trainees, for long or short term projects. With over 80 countries involved and exchanging over 4000 traineeships each year worldwide, it is one of the largest organizations in the world.