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UNIVERSITY

Spain remains top choice for Erasmus students

Spain has held onto its position as the leading destination for European university students in the Erasmus exchange scheme and is also the country that sends most students abroad, despite offering the lowest grants in the EU.

Spain remains top choice for Erasmus students
Granada University received more Erasmus exchange students in 2011/2012 than anywhere else in Europe. Photo: Universidad de Granada

A report published on Monday by the European Commission revealed that 39,300 Erasmus students came to study in Spain in the 2011/2012 academic year, or some 15.5 percent of the total students who take part in the exchange programme.

The figure puts Spain ahead of France (28,964), Germany (27,872) and the UK (25,760).

In the same academic year a total of 39,545 Spanish students went to one of the 33 other European countries in the scheme to study or do work placements.

The financial support that Spain offers students of €123 ($160) per month is set deliberately low so that it can be offered to a greater number of Erasmus participants.

In other countries, that figure can be much higher. In Latvia, for example, students receive €641 per month, while the European Community average is €252.

Broken down by city, Granada University received more exchange students than any other in Europe in 2011/2012 and four other Spanish institutions – Madrid's Computense University, Seville University, Valencia University and Valencia Polytechnic – were in the top 10.

Poland, with 6,312 exchange visitors, pipped Spain (4,654) as the preferred destination for professors in the part of the Erasmus programme which sees teachers spend time in a foreign university.

In the report, Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, highlighted the success of Erasmus since its launch in 1987.

She said:  "The latest record figures, showing that we have exceeded our target of 3 million Erasmus students, are testament to the enduring success and popularity of the programme."

"Erasmus is more important than ever in times of economic hardship and high youth unemployment: the skills and international experience gained by Erasmus students make them more employable and more likely to be mobile on the labour market."

Erasmus is scheduled to be replaced in January 2014 with a new scheme called Erasmus+.

This will be based on the existing model and will offer four million students the chance to study, train, teach or volunteer abroad between its launch and 2020.

The programme is expected to have a budget of around €14.5 billion for 2014–2020, or 40 percent more than funding for the current education and training mobility programmes.

The current Erasmus funding is some €450 million a year.

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ISLAM

Police probe opened after poster campaign against ‘Islamophobic’ lecturers at French university

The French government condemned on Monday a student protest campaign targeting two university professors accused of Islamophobia, saying it could put the lecturers in danger.

Police probe opened after poster campaign against 'Islamophobic' lecturers at French university
Illustration photo: Justin Tallis/AFP

Student groups plastered posters last week on the walls of a leading political science faculty in Grenoble that likened the professors to “fascists” and named them both in a campaign backed by the UNEF student union.

Junior interior minister Marlene Schiappa said the posters and social media comments recalled the online harassment of French schoolteacher Samuel Paty last October, who was beheaded in public after being denounced online for offending Muslims.

“These are really odious acts after what happened with the decapitation of Samuel Paty who was smeared in the same way on social networks,” she said on the BFM news channel. “We can’t put up with this type of thing.”

“When something is viewed as racist or discriminatory, there’s a hierarchy where you can report these types of issues, which will speak to the professor and take action if anything is proven,” Schiappa said.

Sciences Po university, which runs the Institute of Political Studies (IEP) in Grenoble in eastern France, also condemned the campaign on Monday and has filed a criminal complaint.

An investigation has been opened into slander and property damage after the posters saying “Fascists in our lecture halls. Islamophobia kills” were found on the walls of the faculty.

One of the professors is in charge of a course called “Islam and Muslims in contemporary France” while the other is a lecturer in German who has taught at the faculty for 25 years.

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