EU Mobility Scoreboard: more effort needed

The best public support systems for promoting and giving advice to students about opportunities to study or train abroad are in Germany, Belgium, Spain, France and Italy, according to the first EU Mobility Scoreboard.

The scoreboard is part of the European Commission’s response to a call by EU member states to remove obstacles to studying and training abroad as part of wider efforts to help young people gain the skills and experience they need to increase their employability.

Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, said “Studying and training abroad is an excellent way to gain valuable skills and experience, which is why the EU has greatly increased funding for mobility under the new Erasmus+ programme. The Mobility Scoreboard allows us to see for the first time how well countries are creating a positive environment for student mobility to flourish and where they could do more.”

The Mobility Scoreboard focuses on five key factors – information and guidance about opportunities, portability of student aid, knowledge of foreign languages, recognition of studies abroad, and support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds – that influence young people’s motivation and ability to study abroad. It reveals that these factors vary significantly between member states and that no single country scores highly on all measures of their ‘mobility environment’.

It was found that Germany, Belgium, Spain, France and Italy provide the most comprehensive support to students. Information and guidance structures are least developed in Bulgaria, Greece, Slovenia and Cyprus.

Portability of student aid enables students to receive public grants and loans in another country on the same terms as when they study at home. Student grants and loans are portable in the Dutch and German-speaking parts of Belgium, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Finland and Sweden.