1. How to reach the target of 3 million ERASMUS students by the year 2012? 10th anniversary of the Erasmus Programme in the Slovak Republic, Bratislava, 25.09.2008 Natascha Sander, European Commission, Directorate-General for Education and Culture, DG EAC/B-3, MADO 11/90, B-1049 Brussels

2. 2 Erasmus – Introduction 10 years of Slovak’s participation in Erasmus Comparison of the Slovak Republic with the other Erasmus participating countries Political priorities and goals

3. 3 Erasmus student mobility Over 6.300 Slovak students since 1998 (0.38 % of the total) numbers are increasing steadily each year Academic year 2006/07 outgoing students 1.346 (0.84 % of the total) with Germany as the most popular destination followed by France incoming students 655 (0.41 % of the total) mainly from Poland and the Czech Republic still an imbalance in the number of incoming and outgoing students (ratio 1:2) but typical for the new Member States average study period abroad was 5.1 months (EU average 6.5 months) Business studies most popular study field followed by languages and philological sciences - in line with the general trend at EU level

4. 4 RankingInstitution name Outgoing students Incoming students Total students 1UNIVERZITA KOMENSKEHO V BRATISLAVE359143502 2EKONOMICKÁ UNIVERZITA V BRATISLAVE16791258 3UNIVERZITA MATEJA BELA7681157 4ZILINSKÁ UNIVERZITA V ZILINE8149130 5TECHNICKÁ UNIVERZITA V KOSICIACH8739126 6SLOVENSKÁ TECHNICKÁ UNIVERZITA V BRATISLAVE9516111 7UNIVERZITA KONSTANTINA FILOZOFA V NITRE8130111 8UNIVERZITA PAVLA JOZEFA SAFARIKA V KOSICIACH8224106 9PRESOVSKÁ UNIVERZITA V PRESOVE524496 10SLOVENSKÁ POLNOHOSPODÁRSKA UNIVERZITA V NITRE443074 11VYSOKA SKOLA VYTVARNYCH UMENI V BRATISLAVE322052 12VYSOKÁ SKOLA MÚZICKÝCH UMENÍ V BRATISLAVE282452 13KATOLÍCKA UNIVERZITA V RUZOMBERKU252247 14UNIVERZITA VETERINÁRSKEHO LEKÁRSTVA291241 15TRENCIANSKA UNIVERZITA ALEXANDRA DUBCEKA V TRENCINE18927 16TRNAVSKÁ UNIVERZITA V TRNAVE22224 17AKADÉMIA UMENÍ V BANSKEJ BYSTRICI18624 18TECHNICKA UNIVERZITA VO ZVOLENE17623 19UNIVERZITA SV. CYRILA A METODA V TRNAVA15621 20BRATISLAVSKÁ VYSOKÁ SKOLA PRÁVA130 21UNIVERZITA J. SELYEHO303 22SLOVAK MEDICAL UNIVERSITY213 Erasmus student mobility in the Slovak Republic 2006/07

5. 5 Erasmus teacher mobility Over 1.800 Slovak teachers since 1998 Numbers are increasing steadily each year Academic year 2006/07 Outgoing teachers 488 (1.89 % of the total teaching staff mobility) with the Czech Republic as most popular destination followed by Germany Incoming teachers 569 (2.20 % of the total) mainly from the Czech Republic and Poland Majority of the teachers taught engineering and technology and mathematics and informatics Average duration 8.0 days (EU average 6.4 days)

6. 6 Erasmus teacher mobility in the Slovak Republic 2006/07 RankingInstitution name Outgoing Teachers Incoming Teachers Total Teachers 1ZILINSKÁ UNIVERZITA V ZILINE7458132 2UNIVERZITA MATEJA BELA4189130 3TECHNICKÁ UNIVERZITA V KOSICIACH6166127 4PRESOVSKÁ UNIVERZITA V PRESOVE295079 5SLOVENSKÁ TECHNICKÁ UNIVERZITA V BRATISLAVE363268 6UNIVERZITA KONSTANTINA FILOZOFA V NITRE323567 7UNIVERZITA KOMENSKEHO V BRATISLAVE 66 8UNIVERZITA PAVLA JOZEFA SAFARIKA V KOSICIACH402565 9KATOLÍCKA UNIVERZITA V RUZOMBERKU262955 10SLOVENSKÁ POLNOHOSPODÁRSKA UNIVERZITA V NITRE173451 11EKONOMICKÁ UNIVERZITA V BRATISLAVE151732 12TECHNICKA UNIVERZITA VO ZVOLENE121527 13AKADÉMIA UMENÍ V BANSKEJ BYSTRICI141327 14UNIVERZITA SV. CYRILA A METODA V TRNAVA11920 15UNIVERZITA J. SELYEHO12214 16TRNAVSKÁ UNIVERZITA V TRNAVE7613 17VYSOKÁ SKOLA MÚZICKÝCH UMENÍ V BRATISLAVE8513 18TRENCIANSKA UNIVERZITA ALEXANDRA DUBCEKA V TRENCINE3811 19BRATISLAVSKÁ VYSOKÁ SKOLA PRÁVA167 20UNIVERZITA VETERINÁRSKEHO LEKÁRSTVA 33 21VYSOKA SKOLA VYTVARNYCH UMENI V BRATISLAVE213

7. 7 Participation in Erasmus projects 2007/08 Erasmus intensive programmes The Slovak national agency received 5 applications, which all were accepted (4 new and 1 renewal) with 21 partners involved in the different intensive programmes (duration mainly 2 weeks) Erasmus multilateral projects mainly active as partners, which gives potential for increase 12 higher education institutions are partners in networks 1 partner in curriculum development project 2 partners in virtual campuses 1 partner in modernisation of higher education project 1 partner in accompanying measures From the four submitted proposals only 1 project of a Slovak coordinator was selected in the area of modernisation

8. 8 Well performance in Erasmus mobility annual rates of increase of incoming students and teachers are among the highest of the 31 participating countries However comparing the Slovak Republic with countries of a similar size like Lithuania, Ireland and Denmark there is still potential of improvement: Denmark and Ireland send the double of students; even Lithuania has a considerable higher number of outgoing students. gap is even greater for incoming students Lithuania and Slovakia have similar numbers, but Denmark and Ireland receive twelve times more students Concerning teacher mobility the picture is more positive; numbers are similar for all four countries for incoming and outgoing teachers Comparison with the other Erasmus participating countries

9. 9 Political priorities „Mobility for all“ Make periods of learning abroad a rule, rather than the exception for the moment 3,5 % of students and teachers are mobile European wide with Erasmus the target of 15 % should be reached by 2015 Recommendation of High-Level Expert Forum Europe needs more and better mobility – Making Learning Mobility an Opportunity for All (not just to students, but to young people in general including apprentices, secondary school level students, young entrepreneurs, artists and volunteers)

10. 10 3 million Erasmus students by 2012 „Ambitious goal“ Within 20 years 1.5 million students were reached Double the figure now in 6 years In order the reach the goal an 10 % increase of Erasmus students is needed However, only 3 % were achieved lately (2006/07) after an increase of 7 % in the previous years

11. 11 How to reach the goals? „Mobilisation of all parties involved“ Use all the possibilities, Erasmus offers for mobility: - Erasmus for students: study abroad – placement abroad - Erasmus for staff: teach abroad – be trained abroad - intensive programmes Use the summer gap, e.g. for placements and summer schools (IPs)

12. 12 How to reach the goals? Funding The limit of what the Lifelong Learning Programme can finance has been reached other sources of funding, whether national, regional or local as well as other EU sources e.g. Structural Funds need to be developed enable us to fund more students enable us to provide higher grants

13. 13 How to reach the goals? Promotion Promotion campaigns on European, national and regional level to target groups and multipliers Erasmus must be more attractive to students Benefits of participating in Erasmus must be better publicised VALERA study of 2006 found that a period of study abroad helps to - enhance international competences - contributes to international mobility of graduates - places former Erasmus students in visibly international professions there is a positive and sustainable effect by being mobile already after 6 weeks abroad

14. 14 How to reach the goals? Quality issues To ensure that students are well informed before and during their period of mobility lack of such basic information a frequent complaint from students Need to have a serious monitoring of the implementation of the Erasmus Charter in universities this year the European Commission envisaged having the Bologna experts also promoting Erasmus – regrettably not much interest

15. 15 How to reach the goals? Recognition of period spent abroad Most recent student survey carried out by the Erasmus Students Network (ESN) shows that while 58 % got full recognition and a further 25 % received recognition for most of their courses Non recognition remains a significant problem for around 17 % of all students The attractiveness of a period abroad is crucially dependent on the recognition issue Greater efforts should be made to resolve legitimate recognition problems

16. 16 Cooperation between higher education and enterprises Priority for the European Commission Involvement of enterprises and the labour market many of the new actions Erasmus offers are neither known to the industry nor to the students - placements for students - mobility of higher education staff to enterprises - lecturers from enterprises in higher education institutions

17. 17 Modernisation agenda give more autonomy to the higher education institutions by - governance reform - Bologna / curricular reform - funding reform - partnerships with business - competition / excellence

18. 18 Conclusions Erasmus has been the initiator of the Bologna Process Erasmus is the principal instrument to support the higher education reform further Use the unused potential of the Erasmus Programme increase mobility for students increase mobility for staff participate in Erasmus projects participate in Erasmus networks There is still a substantial number of students willing to go abroad but who have not yet done so. This is a significant reservoir to tap into!

19. 19 Erasmus more information on: http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/index.htm European Commission on EUROPA EAC EA - Executive Agency National Agencies