Educational fun

So the polls are in: Fun and educational reasons for going abroad leads the race, with a slight lead to fun and excitement. Go figure!

Differences in mobility in the EU member states

Even though student mobility is an important political goal for the entire Europe, student mobility varies greatly among the countries. 
The chart below shows the differences in student mobility in Europe measured as outflow of students in percent of the total amount of the student population. The reason why small countries like Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Cyprus have such a high student mobility is probably that they due do their small population size are not able to offer so many different higher educations as in countries with larger populations. Therefore, many students have to go abroad to attend their dream education.

Economic and political challenges to student mobility

With the larger budget the Erasmus+ program enables more students to finance a period of studying abroad.  But there might be other economic obstacles standing between the student and a study period abroad. For instance it can in some countries be impossible or difficult to take study grants or loans abroad. Likewise, the current economic crisis can have affected student’s possibility to fund a period of studying in another country.

Picture:flagpedia.net

Other obstacles have to do with lack of information about the possibilities to study abroad or with problems about mutual recognition of study and training results. As a consequence, The EU Education Ministers in May agreed to work for the removal of national and regional obstacles to studying or training abroad. This work is still in progress – so right now you have a good opportunity to influence the future policies. 

What do you think, your national politicians or the European Union can do to make it easier to go abroad to study?

Cultural and psychological challenges to mobility

Cultural and psychological differences can also be a reason why, student mobility varies between the European countries.
Maybe studying abroad is just not a possibility in the mind of the individual student. Or maybe the language skills of the students limit their possibilities so much that they can ´t find a university abroad, where they can follow courses connected to their study in a language that they master. For instance, following a course in French or German is too difficult for a lot of students.
The national education systems have a great responsibility for increasing the international awareness of the pupils and teaching them foreign languages that enables them to attend a study on a university abroad. 

Picture:www.igeeksblog.com 

How many and which languages should pupils be taught in elemenatary school to give them more possibilities to study and work in other european countries later on?

What makes a country an attractive study destination?

What is important in the mind of the students, when they decide where to study abroad?Is it the professional quality of the University? Or the universities reputation for taking good care of the foreign students and creating an inspiring international student environment? How important is it that the universities offers a broad palette of courses taught in English to choose from? And what does other factors like a nice climate, cool metropoles or sunny beaches mean, when students decide what foreign country, they want to study in?

                                                                 Picture:www.swedavia.se 

As you can see on the chart, the inflow of students measured as a percentage of students in the host country varies a lot in the different EU-Countries. Luxenbourg and Lichtenstein clearly top the list, but apart from that there doesn´t seem to be any clear patterns.

 

Most popular Erasmus universities

Among among Erasmus Students Spain, Denmark and Italy to the list.
To see the Top 100 for higher education institutions receiving most Erasmus students in 2011-2012 press the link: http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus/doc/stat/1112/receiving_en.pdf

In the year 2011/2012 Aarhus University in Denmark was number 6 on the top 100 list of higher education institutions receiving most Erasmus students. In this interview international director at Aarhus University Ulla Gjørling tells, what Aarhus University has done to make the university attractive for students from abroad, and how the university benefits from having international students.



In your opinion, what can countries and universities do to become more attractive for students from abroad?

This videos shows which countries who has the most students going abroad during their education (2002-2011). Colours range from green (light student mobility) too red (high student mobility)

The video shows students flowing into other countrys as part of their educational programs (2002-2011). The colours range from green too red, where the red symbolises the countries who have the most student inflow.