Top marks for Erasmus programme
New figures on participation in Erasmus, the EU's student mobility programme for higher education, show that the number of students who've benefited from it to study abroad over the past 21 years has reached the two million mark. Irish participation figures are up 19% from last year to 1,817.
Commenting on the figures Ján Figel', European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, said: " More and more of Europe's students are able to participate in Erasmus exchanges. The fact that the programme has helped 2 million students go abroad for studies and placements since its launch in 1987 makes Erasmus a European success story. Research clearly shows that not only the mobile individuals, but also their educational institutions and society as a whole greatly benefit from such transnational mobility.Now we would like to build on the success of Erasmus and offer such opportunities to all young people who want to go abroad for learning.To this end, we have recently opened a public consultation on the best strategy to achieve this objective."
The newly-published figures for the 2007/8 academic year show that participation in Erasmus is highest in Austria (1.77%), the Czech Republic (1.54%) and Spain (1.41%). For the 1,817 Irish students who studied abroad that year the most popular destinations were France (464), Greece (324), Germany (245) and the UK (158). Nevertheless, the number of students availing of the Erasmus programme is less than one percent of the total student population (190,300).
In recent years the Erasmus programme has been extended greatly, aiming to encourage more students to take part. The programme now covers work placements for students in vocational training (the Leonardo da Vinci programme) as well as those in universities. Of the 189,000 who received Erasmus grants last year, 20, 002 were for traineeships. It is now also possible for teachers and university staff to travel abroad to work in a partner institution.
Social sciences, business studies and law was the most popular group of subject areas for Erasmus students, followed by arts and humanities in second place and engineering, manufacturing and construction in third. The average time spent 'on Erasmus' was 6.5 months. 62 % of the Erasmus students studying abroad were female.
Efforts to increase the average grant that students get from the Erasmus budget have taken the European average monthly grant to €242 in 2007/2008, an increase of 26 % on the previous year. The average sum received by students from Ireland studying in a partner country was €233 per month.
Background:
Erasmus, established in 1987, is the EU's flagship education and training programme, enabling more than 180,000 students to study and work abroad each year, as well as supporting co-operation actions between higher education institutions across Europe. It caters not only for students, but also for professors and business staff who want to teach abroad and for university staff who want to be trained abroad.
The Programme is named after the humanist and theologian Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1465-1536) whose travels for work and study took in the era’s great centres of learning, including Paris, Leuven and Cambridge.
With the addition of Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in 2009, the number of participating countries has reached 33.
In Ireland, the Higher Education Authority administers EU LifeLong Learning programmes, including the Erasmus and Leonardo da Vinci programmes.
European Commission: The Erasmus programme European Commission: Public consultation: Green Paper on promoting the learning mobility of young people Higher Education Authority: www.hea.ie
