150 citizens from 27 EU countries gathered over three weekends in Brussels or online to share their experience and ideas for the future of learning mobility.
Democracy represents one of the six main priorities of the current European Commission. The EU has introduced different initiatives and tools taking into account the citizens’ voices in various debates, such as the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), the European Democracy Action Plan (EDAC) or the Have Your Say portal. One of the more recent initiatives are the European Citizens’ Panels, an offspring of the Conference on the Future of Europe which took place from April 2021 to May 2022, offering people from across Europe a space to share their ideas in citizen-led series of debates and discussions (see SwissCore article). In the European Citizens’ Panels randomly selected citizens of different age groups and backgrounds are brought together to exchange on selected current issues like Food Waste, Learning Mobility or Virtual Worlds.
From 28 to 30 April, the final session of the European Citizens’ Panel on Learning Mobility took place in Brussels, gathering 150 citizens from all 27 Member States to share their reflections on the possible future of learning mobility. The ideas presented by the citizens turned into 21 concrete recommendations with the goal of facilitating the mobility of learners, educators and staff. These recommendations are the result of three sessions over three weekends in March and April where citizens worked together in small groups (each of around 12 people) or in plenaries, always with a support of a facilitation team. Their main aim was to discuss and identify obstacles of learning mobility abroad, key areas for improvements and to come up with possible solutions.
The fact that the citizens came from very different backgrounds and haven’t worked on international education before allowed the emergence of new forms of recommendations on mobility. Opening learning mobility up for people of all ages who are NEET (not in employment, education or training, recommendation 3), enabling learning mobility for families (recommendation 5), the deployment and adaptation of Erasmus+ information centres and services to harmonise “the European pathwork” of information services (recommendation 9) or mentors for a better welcome in the destination country (recommendation 12) are just four examples of the suggestions. Topics such as multilingualism and language learning, raising the awareness of Erasmus+, mobility for vocational education, more flexibility in the programme and its funding scheme or the facilitation of the mobility process were furthermore presented. The twin green and digital transition also had an influence on the proposals as a call for greener mobility or the use of digital opportunities for learning mobility were elaborated by some of the working groups.
These recommendations will be considered for the Commission’s upcoming proposal for a Council Recommendation on a New Learning Mobility Framework, in parallel with the gathered opinions from the public consultations. Moreover, European organisations have participated in the EC’s call for evidence on the co-revision of the mobility framework. The Academic Cooperation Association (ACA), for example, published its policy input in May 2023. ACA calls for (i) three principles of higher education guiding the work on mobility which are diversity, openness, flexibility and for (ii) further support of four major types of mobility: credit mobility for study and for training, degree mobility, new mobility formats such as blended mobility, and staff mobility. Another example is the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), which communicated the network’s contribution to the Council Recommendation on 3 May 2023. The association presents, based on its research and policy work over the last few years, the current state of play of learning mobility and provides recommendations on fair and inclusive funding mechanisms, mobility promotion or recognition and quality assurance of mobility, for instance.
We can see that the EC has launched several initiatives to gather inputs from various voices to remove obstacles and find new opportunities for the future of learning mobility. The work of the European Citizens’ Panel on Learning Mobility represents an open ear to the needs of the citizens of Europe, but it remains to be seen to what extent their recommendations will be taken into account by the EC’s proposal. The first set of citizens’ panels is now over and new panels on upcoming issues are being considered.