Increased prestige and competitiveness of schools During the first phase of the survey, almost all respondents said that their willingness to raise the prestige of their schools and improve their competitiveness against the background of the local education offer was one of the most important reasons for lodging grant applications (and one of the most essential benefits arising from the implementation of their project). In the opinion of school heads participating in the survey this was due to the fact that schools had to compete to attract new students in a period of demographic decline. This increased competitiveness of schools was important especially to those respondents who work in institutions situated in bigger urban centres. In smaller towns applying for participation in projects was often described as a way to survive. This mainly applied to schools situated near big agglomerations, as they were exposed to the risk of losing students to competitive urban schools. An insufficient number of students means breaking the continuity of forms and, consequently, may lead to closing down a school. In such situations international projects were regarded as a chance for making a school attractive to young people and - hence - for its survival. We are great at recruiting new students. Our students achieve excellent results at final examinations. We can also see that various institutions display a great interest in cooperating with our school. We have become leaders and that is why our activities and involvement are appreciated. To other schools we are an example to follow. They see how many things we have managed to do [...].
Also during the second phase of the survey teachers indicated the significance of school prestige as an important institutional benefit resulting from international projects. However, this was referred to much more rarely than during the first phase. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the implementation of mobilities changes the strategic approach of schools to ways of benefiting from mobility. Inasmuch as schools decided to lodge applications to increase their competitiveness on the local education market, on completion of their projects they realised that benefits linked to institutional development proved much more important. Therefore, having reached a certain level of internationalisation, schools prefer to use their international experience in a decidedly fuller way that goes beyond benefits resulting from gaining prestige among local educational institutions.
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