On 21 September, the first meeting of the new academic year was held with the mentors of the MA internship programme to be launched this year. Unlike in previous years, this event was held online, with the virtal presence of mentors and teachers involved in the programme.

The purpose of the meetings held at the beginning of each academic year is to provide a common forum for participants to evaluate the results of the past year's internship activities, share their experiences and prepare the new academic year.

To this end, the Dean of the PTI presented a detailed analysis of student internships, based on data from the internship administration platform, as well as the feedbacks of interns and mentors.

Compared to previous years, the group of student interns in 2020-2021 was smaller, sixteen in total. In the context of the presentation, particular attention was paid to the feedback received from interns and mentors. These feedbacks contain countless encouraging and positive appreciations, which will serve as a source of inspiration for the next year. Constructive comments and criticisms were also presented. Within the limits of available resources, each individual remark will be taken into account. These feedbacks have had a major contribution to improving and streamlining the internship programme, launched in autumn 2017.

The feedbacks regularly mention the participants' expectations to reduce the number of mandatory tasks for interns (those prescribed by PTI coordinating teachers), requesting at the same time that the number of tasks directly assigned by mentors of local churches play a more prominent role in the program. As in previous years, it was suggested that the time spent "on site" should be increased to allow for more practical activities. It was noted during the presentation that the elaboration of a new internship plan is already being outlined, which will integrate into the internship program the summer period prior to the second year MA. This new programme will start in the summer of 2022 and will allow for more flexibility and a diversification of the internship activities.

From September 2021, eight new mentors will join the mentoring programme who, together with previous staff, will support the 25 active trainees. Partly due to the joining of a significant number of new mentors, and partly due to the need for a stronger cooperation between PTI and its mentors, the Board has decided to meet again at the mid-point of the trainee programme in January 2022 in an on-line session. A proposal was also put forward that the online platform could be used this year by coordinating teachers to provide mentors with professional and methodological support, i.e. opportunities to deepen their knowledge of the theoretical basis according to which trainee students are expected to carry out their internships under their coordination.