Europe’s moving targets
The first European mobility scoreboard is proving a useful tool for universities, not least because it has revealed some worrying trends
Europe’s governments have a long-standing commitment to encouraging young people to study abroad and to removing obstacles that are in their way. Yet it is only now that an overview has been produced to show what those commitments mean in practice. The first edition of the European mobility scoreboard, published in January, shows considerable variation across Europe. It also reveals areas where it is impossible to say what, if anything, has been achieved.
The scoreboard is produced by Eurydice, an education statistics network hosted by the European Commission, in response to a 2011 request from the Council of Ministers. Framed as a feasibility study, the scoreboard will be updated in 2015 and then appear every two years.
It gives data and composite indicators in five areas where governments have made commitments to support student mobility: providing information and guidance for students; foreign language preparation; portability of grants and loans, and financial support for mobile students; recognition of learning outcomes; and support for students from poor socio-economic backgrounds. Figures date from 2011-12. Some data are also provided on measures to monitor the quality of students’ mobility experience, but Eurydice concludes that it is not possible to build this into a composite indicator.
Meanwhile, it also proved impossible to compile data on administrative obstacles to mobility, on motivating students to become mobile, and the promotion of partnerships. Sometimes these activities were too diverse for meaningful figures to be collected, sometimes the information was out of reach – for example, held by ministries responsible for immigration, health and labour rather than education.
Even with these gaps, student organisations and universities see the scoreboard as a useful tool. “For the moment, it is the most comprehensive overview that I have seen on national initiatives for supporting mobility in Europe,” says Michael Gaebel, director of the European University Association’s higher education policy unit.
In particular, it provides a more solid assessment of governments’ past expressions of good intentions. “In this regard the scoreboard is a good starting point for thinking about how to follow that up, but also for becoming aware of how diverse conditions for mobility are in different countries.”
For Gaebel, the most striking finding involves the diploma supplement. This is a document issued to graduates that describes their studies in a standard way, hence improving the international understanding of degrees and aiding mobility.
Implementation is patchy, but the more alarming finding is that only Belgium has a system in place to monitor whether graduates and employers actually use it. “There is some anecdotal evidence about whether or not it is useful, but apparently it hasn’t been surveyed anywhere,” Gaebel says. “It is an open question, but somebody has to ask it.”
While most countries have come a long way on initiatives to provide students with information and guidance, the results are uneven in every other category. Very few countries perform well across all indicators. Student organisations see this variation as particularly damaging where it involves financial measures, such as the ability to use grants or loans given at home to study abroad. Only nine higher education systems are fully flexible in this respect, while at the other end of the spectrum another nine offer no portability of any kind.
“The portability of grants is still a big obstacle for many students to study abroad,” says Stefan Jahnke, president of the Erasmus Student Network. “The heterogeneous situation in Europe creates inequality and should be resolved as soon as possible.”
This concern is echoed by Rok Primožic?, chairman of the European Students Union, who also sees problems in the varied approach to recognising and supporting students from low socio-economic backgrounds. “Much more work needs to be done to ensure that everybody has a chance to go on a mobility period,” he says.
Ian Mundell is a freelance journalist based in Brussels.
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