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Quo Vadis Student Mobility? Print E-mail
bridges vol. 18, July 2008 / OpEds & Commentaries

by Florian Pecenka

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Florian Pecenka
When we talk about student mobility in Europe, the first thought that often comes to mind is the EU's well-known student mobility program, Erasmus. This successful program supports students studying abroad - with a total of 31 European countries participating in it. The so-called Bologna process, an important facilitator of European student mobility, complements Erasmus by creating the European higher education area (EHEA) and making academic degree and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe.

This large-scale academic mobility of students and scholars raises issues such as the portability of grants and loans, and questions of how to deal with national social security and pension plans. These questions concern not only European policy makers but also researchers, mainly social scientists, who try to understand and  explain the patterns that underlie various forms of mobility.

A conference was organized by the French Community in Belgium this May to bring together lawmakers and researchers dealing with mobility questions. The conference - Fostering student mobility: Next Steps? - was attended by about 150 delegates from government departments and higher education institutions, as well as from European and international inter- and non-governmental organizations. Together with the two key speakers, Ulrich Teichler from the International Center of Higher Education Research (INCHER) and Bernd Wächter from Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), the conference participants discussed different types of mobility to better understand their causes and consequences, especially the newest kid on the mobility block:  asymmetric mobility.

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