The latest assessment of what European countries do to enable learning mobility shows a positive trend, while support for disadvantaged learners remains weak.
The value of learning mobility in the EU is widely accepted and supported by strong evidence from learning mobility impact studies. It contributes to personal and professional development, strengthens intercultural and linguistic competences, and creates international networks. This internationalisation in turn improves the quality of education institutions and systems as a whole. While learning mobility is pursued and supported throughout the continent, and funded by Erasmus+ since 1987, certain obstacles to mobility persist. These obstacles include issues with recognition, lack of guidance or language skills, among others. In order to address them, the Council of the EU adopted the 2011 Youth on the Move recommendation. The European Commission is currently working on an update of this Council Recommendation to be published after the summer 2023 (see SwissCore article).
The Recommendation set the basis for the Mobility Scoreboard, which aims to monitor the progress in advancing learning mobility. It studies policy regulations affecting learning mobility in higher education and vocational education and training (VET). The third edition of the scoreboard was published on 27 April 2023. The report is based on data from Eurydice from all EU Member States and a number of other European countries, including Switzerland. The report is structured in six chapters corresponding to a set of indicators: information and guidance, foreign language preparation, portability of grants and loans, participation of disadvantaged learners, recognition of learning outcomes, and recognition of qualifications.
Overall, the scoreboard is diverse as ever (see Figure A on page 72 of the report), but some trends can be observed. Foreign language preparation and the recognition of learning outcomes via ECTS are well developed in a majority of countries. The recognition of qualifications presents still a good picture, but is slightly less widely supported. The portability of grants is in place in a majority of countries, however, a small number of countries are underperforming on this indicator. Information and guidance present a very mixed picture, with very few countries fulfilling this indicator completely. Lastly, the support for disadvantaged learners is weak, as most countries do not strategically support the participation of disadvantaged learners in learning mobility.
Looking at the developments of the indicators since 2015, there has not been much change in foreign language preparation, the portability of grants, and the recognition of learning outcomes. However, there was a very positive trend in the automatic recognition of qualifications. For example, the Baltic-Benelux agreement on automatic recognition of higher education degrees was signed in 2021. Challenges in the implementation of the Lisbon Recognition Convention under Bologna, however, remain. The Council of the EU has just adopted on 16 May 2023 ‘Conclusions on further steps to make automatic mutual recognition in education and training a reality’ to give new momentum to automatic recognition. Similar to the positive trend on recognition of qualifications, the provision of information and guidance for learning mobility has progressed over the last eight years, albeit incrementally. Lastly again, supporting disadvantaged learners remains low and partially seems even getting worse.
Switzerland is fulfilling all the criteria enabling the portability of grants and is doing well in language preparation and the recognition of learning outcomes. While information and guidance could be further strengthened, most progress is needed in supporting disadvantaged learners and in the recognition of qualifications. Specifically, the report states that Switzerland, like most European countries, does not have any quantitative objectives for the participation of disadvantaged groups in learning mobility, nor any comprehensive monitoring of those numbers. On the positive side, Switzerland does offer need-based grants to disadvantaged students.
A new mobility scoreboard will be devised based on the upcoming learning mobility framework later this year.