Sprettur

Sprettur is a project of social innovation at the Division of Academic Affairs at the University of Iceland.

Sprettur supports and prepares students with an immigrant background to pursue university studies and become sustainable in their learning process through educational and social companionship and mentoring.

The goal of Sprettur is to create equal opportunities in education towards integration.

For whom?

Sprettur is designed for students with immigrant backgrounds who come from non-academic families.

You can participate in Sprettur if:

You are at least 18 years old.
You want to finish secondary school and proceed to university.
You are beginning your university studies and feel the need of extra support to do it well.
Your parents and their parents were born abroad, whether you were also born abroad or not.
Few or no one in your family has a university degree.

What do Sprettur participants do?

Participants learn more about themselves, their communities, and higher education. We do this by offering participants:

workshops
study groups
intercultural events
mentoring

Students take part in Sprettur between one to four years and attend various intercultural gatherings and study groups twice a month. There is compulsory attendance.

What is in it for me?

Social and educational support
Mentoring and companionship support
Personal development
Empowerment and inclusion

Sprettur is an innovative educational program for the inclusion and integration of immigrants into higher education.

Sprettur aims to promote the participation of greater numbers of immigrants in higher education as one of the best ways for learning to study and working together, learning from each other and the multilingual and transdisciplinary university community, fostering integration and cooperation for better and more meaningful relationships in the larger society.

Many immigrants deserve the opportunity to experience university life, but they might need a network of support for learning and engaging with the demands of higher education in generative ways within an ecology of belonging to a learning intercultural community.

Sprettur values are inclusion, equal opportunities for education, integration, belonging, active citizenship, social justice, intercultural wisdom, ecological thinking, earth citizenship, and learning communities.

The director of Sprettur is the intercultural officer of the University of Iceland and works in cooperation with the equality officers to care for equality and inclusion within the university community.

The intercultural officer offers lectures and counselling and promotes intercultural activities and learning spaces for inclusion and belonging.

Sprettur offers information and guidance to consider options and requirements for aspiring to higher education.

Sprettur offers the opportunity to attend regular study groups with mentors to support school homework in different areas of knowledge, for students finalizing their upper secondary school and who are planning to continue towards university studies. Registration is necessary.

Intensive series of lectures and workshops to get better prepared for university culture and its educational, social and intercultural challenges. These events are open to the immigrant community with previous registration.

Complementary support in practicing Icelandic and diverse learning methods for language acquisition.

Sprettur offers training and education in this important role of supporting learning and cultural adaptation of students of foreign background.

Sprettur offers workshops on how to set up an intercultural mentoring program in schools, tailored to their local context and needs.

Sprettur participates actively in the project of developing a policy for inclusion of students with foreign background for the public universities of Iceland.