Image: Wei Huang, via Shutterstock
Public consultation to inform European Commission proposal for creation of European Education Area
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on learning mobility, as part of wider efforts to make studying abroad “a normality rather than an exception”.
The consultation will feed into a Commission policy proposal planned later this year to update the bloc’s learning-mobility framework. Changes to the framework will aim to overcome barriers to student mobility, which is a key goal of the EU in creating a European Education Area by 2025.
Announcing the launch of the public consultation on 8 February, EU R&D and education commissioner Mariya Gabriel said “it should be made easier” for students to discover and take up opportunities to move between education systems in different countries. “This public consultation is an opportunity to listen to all involved stakeholders and make the European Education Area a reality,” she said.
According to the consultation document, “The aim of the initiative is to move towards an objective of the European Education Area of making learning periods abroad for everyone a normality, rather than an exception.”
The Commission said it wanted opportunities for learning and teaching abroad to be available to “everyone” rather than only higher education students, who already benefit from the EU’s Erasmus+ academic-mobility funding scheme. The updated framework will target learners in all sectors and at all levels, it said.
It also plans to enable more people to benefit from the Erasmus+ programme after a 2022 survey found that just 15 per cent of young people had studied, trained or carried out an apprenticeship in another EU country.
The Commission also said it intends to remove barriers to work-based mobility and look for opportunities to strengthen ties between education and innovation.
It said it wants to hear the views of learners and educators, particularly organisations involved in mobility schemes. The deadline to submit feedback is 3 May.