ESIB Statement on the new developments
in the field of mobility

 
Preamble

ESIB – The National Unions of Students in Europe was founded in 1982 to promote
the educational, economic, cultural, social and political interests of students in
Europe. ESIB, through its 50 members from 37 countries, currently represents more
than 10 million students in Europe.

General

Several important initiatives in the field of mobility are topical at the moment, such
as the new generation of Community programmes and the Europass. ESIB welcomes
the Communication from the Commission regarding the new generation of
community education and training programmes after 2006. ESIB understands that
the communication is only a first step in the development of the new generation of
programmes after the consultation process and the proposed solutions are not final.
However, the proposal provides good possibilities for further discussions on the
development of higher education in Europe. ESIB would like to stress the importance
of inclusion of all the stakeholders in the further discussions on the new generation
of programmes till the final ratification of the programmes.

Integrated Programme in Lifelong Learning

Mobility as a building block for internationalisation of higher education
As ESIB stated during the consultation process, internationalisation of higher
education in Europe proposes new challenges for the community programmes and
their development. With internationalisation of higher education we mean the
following. Changes in the operational environment, in all fields of society and also in
the labour market mean that students need to obtain new skills to be able to
successfully participate in today’s society after graduation. These new skills can only
be achieved in a learning environment, where teachers, students and administrative
staff are aware of the international developments and are prepared to take in new
information and have academic discussions also in international forums. Presence of
foreign teachers, students and staff supports the international atmosphere of higher
education institutions (HEI) in a natural way and gives students possibilities to learn
to act in a multicultural environment.

Mobility has been and remains to be a key element in the process of
internationalisation of higher education. ESIB is delighted to see that the Commission
proposes to raise the importance of mobility as an important element of the
programmes and is willing to increase the funds for mobility. ESIB shares the opinion
of the Commission that the target of three million Erasmus students by 2010 cannot
be achieved without a substantial increase in the level of the grant.

Erasmus grant – a central element of support to mobility

The aims to increase the amount of the Erasmus grant are very welcome, since the
major obstacles for mobility are still related to the economic background of students,
even though other obstacles, such as recognition and inadequate language tuition,
are of significant importance and need to be resolved as well. As the Commission
rightly states, the average student grant has remained unchanged since 1993 at EUR
150 per month, which represents a 25% cut in value in real terms. The aims and
concrete actions to increase teacher mobility are also more than welcome. ESIB
encourages the Commission and members states to promote teacher mobility as an
effective means of internationalisation at home.

Numerical growth requires further growth in quality

ESIB is rather concerned about the high numerical goals set for the Erasmus
programme: three million Erasmus students by 2010. ESIB stresses that in all
mobility, further growth in numbers should always mean further progress in quality.

It is of utmost importance that full recognition of study periods taken abroad are
secured in order to make the study period academically meaningful. Informationsharing
and trust, course descriptions, quality assurance and transparency are
essential when trying to resolve problems of recognition. Contacts between
institutions need to be close, not only to ensure the quality of the education but also
to reduce problems of recognition. Adequate and understandable information about
the courses should be available to students.

Student participation in the administration and development of the programmes

Students should be included in the administration of mobility programmes as well as
in designing new programmes and development of existing programmes in all levels.
As the Commission proposes a significant increase in the decentralised actions,
particularly mobility and partnerships, in order to reach the numerical objectives
mentioned above, the workload of National Agencies will increase substantially. ESIB
welcomes the aims of reinforcing the network of National Agencies and increase of
financial support to these agencies, but at the same time hopes that the National
Agencies are not left alone to carry the responsibility of implementing the
programmes with the high numerical goals. ESIB encourages the National Agencies
to include students in the administration and development of the programmes.

Jean Monnet Programme

ESIB supports the proposal to include the Jean Monnet Programme into the new,
integrated programme. This ensures that transversal projects towards the aims of
the Jean Monnet Action and other aims of the Integrated Programme can be
facilitated.

ESIB warmly welcomes the proposal to support European associations in the field of
education in training in their running costs. This support is vital both for the
engagement of the education and training community in European policy-making; it
is also crucial for the ability for such organizations to apply and carry out projects
under other parts of the integrated programme. It is however necessary to clarify
how a selection on a competitive basis would be judged with regards to supporting
running costs.

Tempus Plus programme

ESIB is pleased to welcome the initiative of the European Commission to widen the
scope of the existing TEMPUS programme to include all aspects of education from
schools to vocational and adult education. ESIB strongly believes that development
of society and growth of the country depends is deeply connected with its education
system. The countries need to have an opportunity to learn and gain knowledge
through cooperation and mobility within Europe which is what this programme
enables, however we would like to stress the importance of the governments
themselves to priorities their investments to the development of their education.
We also welcome the intention of the Commission to reach the goal of 100 000
individuals supported through individual mobility grants (IMG) within TEMPUS Plus.
However we would like to make clear that the existing guidelines for applying under
the TEMPUS IMG need to be improved. ESIB would like to point out the following :

The new IMG within TEMPUS plus must enable students and researchers as well as
teachers to spend at least a year in another country. ESIB strongly believes that it is
of highest important to include students, teachers and researchers equally to the
mobility part of the programmes, thus we believe that the goal of IMG should be to
have the same percentage of students and teachers and researchers involved in the
mobility scheme every year.

We further believe that HEIs applying under institutional development and
cooperation grants have to pay special attention in involving student organizations
into their projects especially if the projects are dealing with the reforms of higher
education, and that this needs to be strongly encouraged and promoted.

The Europass initiative

ESIB is aware of the developments regarding the Europass Training and hopes that
the new Europass will provide people with a clear, useful and well-known document
to increase transparency regarding the degree taken, personal qualifications,
experience in the field of mobility and language skills. It is of no use to introduce
new documents if they are not meaningful to the users. ESIB encourages the
Commission to provide ample resources for the information campaigns, especially
targeted at HEI’s, regarding the new Europass.

This statement was adopted at the 46th Board Meeting in Banja Luka, Bosnia-
Herzegovina, April 2004