How do European countries compare in providing mobility opportunities to their students? A recent report by the European Commission – Mobility Scoreboard: Higher Education Background Report – has sought to answer that questions by providing an in depth insight into the student mobility performance of 35 countries across Europe.
Whilst the UK performs exceptionally well in inward student mobility, the report’s data suggests that the UK has more work to do to encourage more students in UK universities to study, work and volunteer abroad as part of outward mobility opportunities. In fact, the UK has the lowest mobility rates of students and graduates out of the 31 European countries included in the outward mobility statistics and is the only country included in the study where less than 1% of students are considered to be mobile. In Slovakia, for example, the proportion of outwardly-mobile students is 14% and 6.6% for Bulgarian students.
In terms of inward mobility, the UK is identified by the report as the top study abroad destination choice for students across the 35 countries included in the inward mobility statistics. The top three countries sending the most students to the UK are identified as Germany, Ireland and France.
The European Commission report highlights some key competitive advantages of UK’s mobility programme, namely the information and guidance on opportunities for students and the support given to students from low socio-economic backgrounds, despite it only focussing on students on outward mobility programmes.
The Universities UK Go International portal is cited as a good practice example of providing study, work and volunteering abroad opportunities, guidance as well as mobility intelligence including policies, research, statistics, and case studies.