Working Session I

1
Working Session I

•  Crossing Borders, Changing Lives  -
• The Importance of Mobility
• in EU programmes for Education Training

2
Overview

• Importance in terms of size
• Importance in terms of positive effects
• New actions for mobility
• Obstacles
• Building blocks in a strategy for boosting volume
  and improving quality of mobility
• Importance of Mobilityfor all the
  socio-economic dimension of mobility

3
Importance in size

• LLP 6970 million (70-80 for mobility)
• 2008 988 million (85 decentralised,
  mostly mobility)
• 2007 300,000 learners 110,000 staff
• 180,000 Erasmus students
• 72,000 Leonardo mobility
• 1987-2006 Erasmus 20 - 1.7 million students

4
Importance in size

• However, still small percentage of respective
  target groups 3.5 Erasmus
• Furthermore, growth rates in Erasmus slackening
  (3.2 2006 compared with 7.2 previous year,
  despite 20 increase in average grant)
• Is there a saturation point? How can more
  participants be motivated?

5
Importance in size

• However, still small percentage of respective
  target groups 3.5 Erasmus
• Furthermore, growth rates in Erasmus slackening
  (3.2 2006 compared with 7.2 previous year,
  despite 20 increase in average grant)
• Is there a saturation point? How can more
  participants be motivated?

6
What makes mobility so important?

• Impacts of mobility
• Economic
• Mobility to help develop the human resources to
  exploit the European single market
• Individual
• Mobility as a means of personal development and
  fulfilment
• Social
• Mobility as a contributor to reducing social
  marginalisation
• Mobility as a contributor to active citizenship
• Mobility as a means of building the European
  family (even literally)

7
Mobility impacts - Leonardo

• High impacts across all categories
• Improvements in personal, social and
  inter-cultural skills
• Positive effects on employment
• Somewhat lower impacts on vocational competences

8
Mobility impacts - Leonardo

• Personal skills
• Adaptability (73)
• Social interaction (72)
• Knowledge of other countries and cultures (71)
  (but tolerance of foreigners only 59)
• Managing new challenges (71)
• Self-confidence (70)
• Languages (66) and willingness to improve
  further in languages (84)
• Managing unexpected situations (65)Impacts of
  mobility

9
Mobility impacts - Leonardo

• Employment impacts (longer duration gt higher
  impact, especially if over 6 months)
• Less strong, except for those unemployed (58 of
  them found a job)
• Increased responsibility at the workplace (34)
• Better workplace (27)
• Professional advancement (24)
• Higher salary (21)

10
Mobility impacts - Leonardo

• VET skills lower (just as Erasmus academic
  impacts tend to be lower than personal, social
  and employment-related)
• Techniques (52)
• Participation in work structures (56)
• Teamwork (62)
• Computer use (41)

11
Mobility impacts - Comenius

• Increased interest in other cultures (gt75)
• Increased motivation to learn a foreign language
  (gt75)
• Increased competence (gt70)

12
Mobility impacts - Erasmus

• Personal
• General competences (coping, adaptability)
• Cross-cultural and foreign language competence
• Personal development ( Auberge espagnole )
• Personal lives (1/6 have foreign partner, 50 of
  these in Erasmus host country)
• Societal impact in the European context
• The Erasmus Generation
• Bringing Europes peoples and citizens closer
  together

13
Mobility impacts - Erasmus

• Professional
• Help in finding first job (54) (1987 71)
• (universities assess this at 80)
• 72 see their current work as appropriate (higher
  than average)
• 40 employers say graduates with international
  experience more likely to assume high-level
  responsibilities
• More international jobs after initial employment
  period
• Not necessarily higher salaries (students say),
  but
• 21 employers say graduates with international
  experience likely to have a higher salary
• And have better competence than non-mobile
  students

14
Mobility impacts - Erasmus

• Academic
• 40 Erasmus students go to higher studies (twice
  the average)
• More motivated students with stronger eye for
  comparative approaches
• 73 of academics say returning Erasmus students
  have higher academic knowledge than non-mobile
  students

15
Mobility impacts - Grundtvig

• Adult learners
• Increased language competence (82)
• Increased general propensity for mobility (82)
  (parallel with Leonardo and Comenius)

16
Mobility impacts Quality of education

• Better trained graduates and trainees(an
  indicator of institutional quality)
• Influence on degree structures via Bologna
• More stimulating learning environment
• More interdisciplinarity in schools (60)
• Stronger European dimension (79)
• Stronger cooperation and networking among staff

17
New Mobility Actions

• Adult education
• new Grundtvig mobility for staff and learners
• senior volunteering as a means of informal
  learning
• European workshops
• Assistantships
• 2010 grants for language-learning
• Vocational training
• Erasmus for apprentices individual apprentices
• Schools
• 2010 individual pupil mobility
• Erasmus for entrepreneurs

18
Satisfaction with Mobility

• Leonardo trainee participants
• 87 satisfied or very satisfied
• 86 now interested in living / working abroad
• 77 would do such a traineeship again or
  something similar
• Erasmus
• 90 view mobility period positively / very
  positively

19
Obstacles to Mobility

• Lack of information
• Lack of motivation (also influenced by family,
  peers, educational organisation)
• Lack of opportunity ltpersonal circumstances
• Lack of a suitable mobility opportunity in the
  existing programmes
• Lack of appetite to surmount (perceived or real)
  bureaucracy
• Lack of funding

20
Still low levels of Mobility

• Small percentage of respective target groups
  even Erasmus (3.5)
• Furthermore, growth rates slackening
• Is there a saturation point?
• Targets
• EU All students should have the opportunity
• Germany 50 study abroad target
• How can more participants be motivated?

21
Boosting and Improving Mobility

• Information
• Language-learning
• Organisational environment, Support services
• Supply side Availability and design of
  programmes
• Initiatives to rectify imbalanced flows
• Data and monitoring
• Last but not least Funding
• Virtual mobility?

22
Boosting and Improving Mobility

• Information
• Putting across the message about mobility more
  clearly and more imaginatively
• Use of public figures, including employers
• Use of modern media accessed by young people
• Parents and peers
• Language-learning
• To boost numbers overall
• To encourage underrepresented flows

23
Boosting and Improving Mobility

• Organisational environment
• Motivation to be mobile via academics and
  teachers
• Mobility as a dimension in school strategy,
  support from local authorities
• Study abroad written into curricula
• Avoiding the Bologna squeeze
• Incentives for study or training abroad
• Full recognition and credit for study abroad,
  validation of acquired competences
• Compliance with quality requirements and
  commitments
• Real inter-cultural mixing at host institution

24
Boosting and Improving Mobility

• Support services
• Guidance (already at school)
• Better attention to practical issues
  (accommodation, visas, health and safety etc.)
• Better preparation (LdV found correlation between
  improved preparation and success of mobility
  period)

25
Boosting and Improving Mobility

• Availability and design of programmes
• Appropriately designed mobility opportunities
• Adapting to Bologna (higher degree mobility)
• User-friendly rules and regulations
• Improved interconnectivity between programmes
• Maintaining contact with and among former
  grant-holders

26
Boosting and Improving Mobility

• Data and monitoring
• Better studies on mobility based on genuine
  mobility figures, not on nationality
• Importance of small-scale, local analyses of
  mobility
• Better impact analysis
• More education training sectors covered

27
Boosting and Improving Mobility

• Funding
• Small-scale injections of funds may not shift the
  paradigm (slowing growth-rates have been
  concurrent with 20 increase in student grant)
• Problems of prioritising within the LLP small
  percentage funding increases in large sectoral
  programmes lead to significant negative
  implications for the smallest (Grundtvig)
• Need for major additional sources
• National (including regional and local) still
  patchy in Erasmus and Comenius, almost
  non-existent in many countries in Grundtvig
• Structural Funds more systematic exploitation
  needed impediments in the rules?
• The private sector how much and what types of
  contribution to funding can realistically be
  expected ?

28
Boosting and Improving Mobility

• Virtual mobility
• Can stimulate real mobility
• Can accompany and enrich real mobility
• Can provide the non-mobile with an international
  dimension
• But cannot replace the benefits deriving from
  real or physical mobility

29
Socio-economic dimension of Mobility

• Profile
• Elements for improvement strategy

30
Socio-economic profile of Mobility

• Leonardo
• Nearly 18 migrants, and from higher
  socio-economic background than the other
  respondents (much higher than the average for all
  migrants in the population)
• Higher level of education of parents than average
• 73 said economic situation during mobility
  acceptable or better (often better than parents)
• 18 from socially disadvantaged backgrounds (5
  severely)
• Disadvantaged trainees almost as successful in
  mobility as those from higher than average
  backgrounds

31
Socio-economic profile of Mobility

• Erasmus
• Similar to profile of overall student population,
  except for higher incidence (35) of higher
  education among parents
• 37 see parents as being in above average income
  bracket (probably similar to student population
  as a whole)
• Erasmus becoming more socio-economically
  neutral neither parent in higher occupational
  brackets 200032, 200639
• However
• Almost one in five (19) said financial situation
  abroad poor (similar to Leonardo, despite more
  favourable Leonardo funding)
• 55 saw the grant as being insufficient
• 53 had friends who had been dissuaded from
  participating due to financial constraints
• Suggests additional funding required in order to
  motivate social groups to participate who are not
  yet doing so

32
Improving the socio-economic dimension

• Stronger steer from Commission priority-setting,
  empowerment of NAs to adopt positive measures
• Stronger communication and publicity
• Development of materials and tools
• Awareness-raising in institutions
• Liaison between NA and social exclusion
  organisations
• Better support services
• Higher grants
• Special initiatives for disability
• Strengthened mobility dimension of programmes
  which address socio-economically disadvantaged
  (Grundtvig)