New statistics unveiled by the British Council reveal that the number of Brits enrolling on the Erasmus European exchange programme has doubled in five years.
The number of UK students studying or working in Europe in 2012/13 rose by seven per cent to 14,607, the highest number in the 25 years since the programme was launched in 1987.
But Ruth Sinclair-Jones, the British Council’s head of EU programmes, pointed out that despite the increase, the UK still trailed behind fellow European countries in terms of uptake.
“The UK overall is only sixth in terms of total students participating in Erasmus; we lag far behind France, Germany and Spain, who have almost three times as many young people gaining vital skills which we all need to compete in a global market.”
Sinclair-Jones added that the international experience offered through Erasmus has been shown to make a real difference in terms of people’s employability.
Erasmus is the EU’s flagship educational exchange programme for HE students, teachers and institutions. It enables students to consider (with most costs covered) studying at another European HE institution.
Since 2007/08, students are also able to undertake a work placement of 3-12 months, if their university holds an Extended Erasmus University Charter. Work placements can be preceded by a language course, for which a grant may be available.
Sinclair-Jones said, “As the number of specialist foreign language courses decline in the UK, Erasmus is becoming even more essential. Research suggests that the UK’s students are aware of the benefits of overseas experience. But these latest results suggest that English students need to embrace this golden opportunity or risk being left further behind in the race for the best jobs.”
Of those universities in England – which send 79% of the UK’s Erasmus students – the University of Nottingham had the largest number of Erasmus students (522). In Scotland, which has a higher outbound study rate compared with its share of students, University of Edinburgh had the record (356).
