Erasmus celebrates 20th anniversary

The European Commission yesterday launched the celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of Erasmus, the student and teachers' mobility programme.

"Erasmus has developed beyond just being an educational programme. It gives many European university students the chance of living for the first time in a foreign country, and it has reached the status of a social and cultural phenomenon. It is an excellent example of what coordinated European action in the field of education can achieve," European Commission president José-Manuel Barroso said.

The Erasmus programme encourages student and teacher mobility and promotes transnational cooperation projects among universities across Europe. Ninety per cent of the EU's universities participate in the Erasmus programme, most of which have adopted the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS), which ensures recognition of the programme in other countries.

In 1987, 3,244 students had participated. Last year, almost 145,000 students took part, of whom130 students were from Malta. The Commission aims to reach a total of three million students by 2012.

Mr Barroso referred to the recently proposed European Institute of Technology as a brand new concept that represents a vision and a belief that concerted European action has a larger added value than the sum up of excellent independent initiatives, similar to how Erasmus was born 20 years ago.

Ján Figel', Commissioner in charge of Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism, said the Commission was calling for member states to increase their support for Erasmus, to open it up to even more students, especially those from less privileged backgrounds."

He said: "Among the challenges left, the Erasmus grant remains far too low to allow students from less favourable financial backgrounds to enjoy the benefits of the programme".

On Wednesday evening, an exhibition to mark the anniversary was launched at the headquarters of the Commission's Directorate-General for Education and Culture in Brussels by Mr Figel' and Odile Quitin, the director-general.