The covid-19 pandemic has additionally affected the one hundred seventy,000 young people concerned in erasmus+ or the ecu unity corps. Find out how the european is helping them.
Education has been hard hit by the Covid-19 crisis. Travel restrictions and the closing of universities mean participants in cross-border mobility programmes, such as the Erasmus+ student exchange and the European Solidarity Corps, are facing challenges.
Currently 165,000 young people across Europe are on an Erasmus exchange and 5,000 more are involved in volunteering projects.
Erasmus students during Covid-19 (source: Erasmus Student Network)
25% of pupil exchanges had been cancelled due to covid-19
37. 5% of college students experienced as a minimum one fundamental trouble associated with their alternate (as an example: couldn’t cross home, lodging troubles)
half of of the scholars whose programme continued have moved to on line instructions
34% have moved to partial online gives or partially postponed instructions
How the EU is helping
To help younger folks that are volunteering or taking element in erasmus+, as a good deal as possible, the eu fee has stated it's going to make the programmes as bendy as legally feasible. It has advocated that the country wide groups, liable for the management of observe exchanges, invoke “pressure majeure”, which could permit them to evaluate the possibility of approving additional expenses as much as a maximum grant quantity and to postpone deliberate activities for one year. Parliament’s way of life and education committee has referred to as at the fee to do the entirety possible to offer help, clear facts and reassurance for individuals. In a letter to mariya gabriel, the commissioner responsible for children and schooling on 15 april, meps ask the commission to make certain that:
maximum flexibility is implemented, especially to help those who've needed to return to their home nations for safety reasons
all tremendous prices in connection with covid-19 are reimbursed
exchange college students and individuals of the solidarity corps programme preserve their status
trade students do now not lose the educational 12 months and can obtain the ects credit thru far off look at arrangements.
About the Erasmus programme
Started as a student exchange programme in 1987, but since 2014 also offers opportunities for teachers, trainees and volunteers of all ages.
Currently covers 33 countries (all 27 EU countries, plus UK, Turkey, North Macedonia, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) and is open to partner countries across the world.
More than nine million people have taken part in the Erasmus+ programme over the last 30 years and nearly 800,000 people benefited from the programme in 2017 alone.
Meps also asked the commission to preserve the way of life and schooling committee up to date about the quantity of contributors currently on an change, their state of affairs and the measures taken to help them. On four may, the committee once more debated the difficulty with commissioners thierry breton and mariya gabriel