Memorandum submitted by John Reilly, Director,
the UK Socrates Erasmus Council
1. EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
1.1 Mobility has been a neglected aspect
of the Bologna Process in the UK.
1.2 The Erasmus Programme provides dramatic
evidence of a serious challenge to the UK in the low number of
outgoing UK Erasmus students.
1.3 UK mobility to and from the new partners
and accession states—Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey—is
low compared with the large member states.
1.4 UK institutions need financial incentives
to participate more actively.
1.5 The European Commission has set a target
for 2012 in the new Lifelong Learning Programme which requires
the UK to improve its mobility substantially.
1. I am writing in a personal capacity based
on my experience as Director of the UK Socrates Erasmus Council
office in Canterbury. This is the UK National Agency for Erasmus,
Tempus and Erasmus Mundus. Each of these programmes has a key
role in the context of the Bologna Process. I have contributed
as a UK Bologna Promoter to the paper prepared by the UK Bologna
Promoters. In this note, I wish to focus on the issue of mobility.
2. The Sorbonne Declaration (1998) signed
by Baroness Blackstone stated that—"Both undergraduate
and graduate level, students would be encouraged to spend at least
one semester in universities outside their own country. At the
same time, more teaching and research staff should be working
in European countries other than their own. The fast growing support
of the European Union, for the mobility of students and teachers
should be employed to the full."
3. The Bologna Declaration, which arose
from the Sorbonne Declaration, reinforced the commitment to student
and teacher mobility.
4. Mobility has been emphasised at each
stage of the Bologna Process. While there has been general support
for the mobility of UK students, it has not been a priority either
at national or institutional level, although the Government has
made a major concession to full year Erasmus students in waiving
the tuition fee.
5. Since Erasmus is the single largest European
student and teacher mobility programme, it is appropriate to focus
on it. The attached graph and statistics illustrate that while
mobility from Germany, France, Spain, Italy and more recently,
Poland has continued in an upward trend. UK mobility has declined
steadily.
6. The HEFCE International Mobility Study
(HEFCE 2004/30) suggested that the key reasons for the decline
were financial pressures on students, the language deficit and
cultural and motivational factors. Unfortunately the study was
unable to undertake research in the major comparative European
countries to explain their continued and steady growth.
7. My experience suggests that the key may
lie in the cultural and motivational climate and, the lack of
institutional incentives to support, encourage and promote student
mobility. If Government policy, translated through the Funding
Councils, provided financial incentives coupled with targets,
I am confident that there would be a dramatic change in outward
UK mobility. An increase in UK student mobility is essential for
the future role of the UK in Europe.
8. The low level of UK mobility compounds
a further problem. The ten new EU partner countries plus Turkey,
Bulgaria and Romania find it difficult to send students to the
UK because students from the UK are not going to them. UK institutions,
understandably, are reluctant to admit more students on a non-reciprocal
basis because they receive no funding for incoming Erasmus students.
Insofar as exchanges are reciprocal, the funding received for
the outgoing student could be said to cover the cost of the incoming
student but it does not cover the additional costs of organising
high quality inward and outward mobility.
9. As a result, while the UK is actively
promoting the cause of Turkey's accession to the European Union,
it is doing nothing to encourage and provide incentives for institutions
and students to establish, links with Turkish Higher Education
Institutions, which are avid to establish Erasmus exchanges of
students and staff with UK institutions. Large numbers of Erasmus
students are travelling from the new partner countries to Germany,
France, Italy and Spain, but relatively few to the UK. The markets
in the new partner countries are burgeoning and the next generation
of their leaders, in all walks of life, will increasingly have
had part of their Higher Education formation in countries to which
they will look for partnerships, rather than to the UK.
10. The low-level of UK participation and
the financial costs to UK Higher Education Institutions is impeding
a development which is critical to Britain's interests in an expanded
European Market.
11. The Committee should bear in mind the
challenging target set in the new Lifelong Learning programme
of a cumulative total of three million Erasmus students by 2012,
building on the current 1.5 million. While this is an ambitious
target, the graph attached suggests that it is within reach for
many of the countries involved. If the UK is to play its full
role and secure its share of the Erasmus budget, its numbers would
need to grow from the current 7,200 to 43,000 by 2012. From the
total student body of a 2.3 million, this does not seem a great
deal but it will not be achieved or even approached if it is not
given priority.
12. The Erasmus experience enhances the
academic range of students and contributes substantially to the
skills and competences which increasingly employers are seeking.
If we consider that it is important for the rest of the world
to come to the UK, it must surely be important for a significant
number of our future graduates in all walks of life to have experience
of working and studying in another country as a part of their
formal education.
ERASMUS INCOMING AND OUTGOING STUDENT MOBILITY
| Country | 2003-04 OutgoingIncoming
| 2004-05 OutgoingIncoming
|
| France | 21,007 | 20,249
| 21,576 | 20,512 |
| Germany | 20,710 | 16,856
| 22,445 | 17,265 |
| Italy | 16,810 | 12,706
| 16,419 | 13,373 |
| Poland | 6,278 | 1,455
| 8,388 | 2,332 |
| Spain | 20,035 | 24,039
| 20,818 | 25,501 |
| United Kingdom | 7,547 |
16,618 | 7,220 | 16,260
|
| Total | 135,388
| 135,388 | 144,010
| 144,010 |
December 2006
|
