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Erasmus+ matters.
It matters for you and for your family, your future, your children’s future.
Why, when we left Erasmus+ in 2020, should you be worried – and what is Erasmus+ in any case?
Erasmus+ is not a European jolly for University students, it’s for people like you who want to develop professionally, train for a new job, gain new knowledge, learn new skills, volunteer to help others, ensure a brighter future for you and your children.
Erasmus+ is the EU's programme to support, through lifelong learning, the educational, professional and personal development of people in education, training, youth and sport, in Europe and beyond.
Today, it is one of the European Union's most visible success stories with 15 million people participating since 1987 and a budget of €26.2 billion.
Erasmus+ is implemented mainly through three so-called “Key Actions”, each reflecting levels of intervention.
For the UK with its focus on growing the economy and British businesses desparate for appropriate skills Key Action 2 is particularly relevant. Target audiences include school education, vocational education (including job shadowing and internships), higher education, adult education (where the UK urgently needs teachers, tutors and facilitators in vocation education), and the youth field (including health, sports, leisure and third sector support).
It is not just about middle class university students going to Europe to study but includes opportunities for schools (including early childhood education and care), adult eduction, apprenticeships, volunteering, vocational opportunities, work placements and sports people to benefit from learning in another European country (outgoing projects). In fact, it’s about people like you!
It’s also a two-way programme with opportunities for people from other countries to come to the UK (incoming projects) for learning experiences – and in doing so, enriching the learning of the UK people they interact with.
The Erasmus+ scheme cost the UK Government around €160mn a year, providing for the mobility of around 49,000 students and over 7,000 staff members.
The UK joined Erasmus (the predecessor of Erasmus+) in 1987.
Since 2014 (the start of the last funding cycle that we took part in) the UK benefited from 7,394 Erasmus+ projects with project grants totalling €1,269,764,463 across 31,710 organisations.
According to the highly respected Chatham House research suggests that the UK actually made a net profit of £243 million per year from its participation in Erasmus+.
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/eacdashboard/sense/app/c553d9e9-c805-4f7a-90e4-103bd1658077/sheet/42a81cd6-257e-44c1-9106-944e4713c9c7/state/analysis
Notice that the largest number of organisations involved were from the Vocational Education and Training sectors, not Higher Education.
During Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiations the EU offered the UK continuing membership of Erasmus+ after Brexit, but Johnson turned this down, despite having previously assured MPs there was “no threat to the Erasmus scheme”.
Subsequently a senior British official has claimed that the U.K. decided to leave the Erasmus+ programme because Brits' poor foreign language skills made membership too expensive to justify. That’s because our poor language skills meant fewer UK nationals took part in outgoing projects than other EU nationals took part in incoming projects. This is an odd explanation given that English is the natural 'language of Europe', is one of the most commonly spoken languages in the region and is one of the three official 'procedural' languages in which the EU conducts its business.
The UK effectively left the Erasmus+ scheme in 2020. From 2021 the UK is a “non-associated third country” in the programme thus radically reducing our opportunities for Erasmus+ cooperation projects and exchanges.
After leaving Erasmus the U.K. set up its own study abroad scheme, called Turing, commencing in September 2021. A recent UK-government commissioned analysis found the replacement scheme had failed to meet its targets, with just over 20,000 people taking part in the 2021/22 academic year against a hoped-for 35,000. Almost 80 percent of universities and colleges taking part in the scheme reported difficulties with the new application process.
The Turing scheme is not reciprocal – it is outgoing only, so does not support non-UK nationals coming to the UK for learning experiences. It is not restricted to the EU but has a global remit. However Turing is generally a narrower, less well-funded scheme than Erasmus+, and has only been funded until 2025. Funding for Turing amounts to £110 million up to 2025 – compare this with the €26.2 billion budget of Erasmus+.
A quick comparison of the two schemes shows the very limited scope of the Turing scheme compared to Erasmus+. The following list shows areas supported by Erasmus+ with areas supported by the Turing scheme shown in bold font.
Schools:
Staff and student exchanges OUTWARD and INWARD
E-Twinning
Job shadowing and study visits
Strategic partnership
Exchange of best practice
Classroom innovation
Enrichment
Staff CPD
Showcase for UK education policy and practice
Improved language teaching
Youth sector:
Cultural exchanges
Environmental projects
Sports projects
Volunteering (1 - 12 months)
Social action projects
Youth worker training and CPD
Blended learning
Advocacy and policy dialogue
Innovation and exchange of best practice
“Discover EU” free 1-month European rail pass for 18-year-olds
FE Colleges
Staff and student exchanges OUTWARD and INWARD
Vocational experience
Soft skills development
Staff CPD
Universities
Staff and student exchanges OUTWARD and INWARD
Year abroad for MFL students
Language learning
Strategic partnership & links to research collaboration
Connecting teaching & research
Yes! For the sake of all of us, the country and future generations. Our future, both as individuals, families and as a nation will be determined partly by the quality of our education and partly by our ability to understand and co-operate with our European neighbours. Erasmus+ is key to both.
We don’t have to rejoin the EU, the customs union or the single market to join Erasmus+. Negotiations will be tough if we want to get a good deal but, given the EU have already offered this as part of the Brexit negotiations, there is no reason to think we can’t succeed. Having the UK in the Erasmus+ scheme is also in the best interests of the EU member states as we have some of the best Universities in the world and Erasmus+ would make studying here more accessible to EU residents.
If you agree that we should rejoin Erasmus+, please show your support by adding your name to our petition
In April 2024 EM Staffordshire held a webinar on Erasmus+
A presentation and discussion on Erasmus+ by Christine Lester, Chief Executive, Minster Development Centre Ltd and Ray Kirtley, Chair, UK Global Learning Association for Schools. Watch a video of the webinar here:
