|
More UK students than ever before are choosing to work or study for up to a year in Europe through the Erasmus programme, according to the latest statistics released today ( 16 November 2012) by the British Council. The number of UK students participating in the programme has risen by 6.5 per cent since 2010/11. In the last academic year, 2011/12, UK students undertook 13,668 periods of study or work-placement, the highest number since the programme was launched in 1987. However David Hibler, Erasmus Programme Manager, cautions that the take-up of the programme in the UK remains heavily weighted towards language students. Read the full story
A new report launched today (13 November 2012) by the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and the British Council calls on UK universities to commit to securing 20% participation in mobility among all higher education students by 2020. The report, 'Going Mobile: Internationalisation, mobility and the European Higher Education Area', highlights challenges to and opportunities for UK universities in achieving the 2009 Leuven 20/2020 commitment. Currently only around 2% of UK undergraduates engage in study or workplace mobility of at least three months. The report’s author, Simon Sweeney, Lecturer in International Political Economy and Business in the York Management School and a member of the Bologna Expert Team (both at University of York), describes the report as uncompromising in its calling for, “a much greater effort from our universities to ensure that internationalisation strategies are driven by educational imperatives rather than dictated by economic ends.” Sweeney also offers proposals for how the situation can be improved.
Over half of the UK’s Erasmus participants come from just twenty institutions, the British Council’s Chief Executive Martin Davidson revealed today at a reception to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Erasmus programme(17 May 2012).
|
