Erasmus founder calls for Brexit veto if scheme is not saved for students
THE Welshman who launched the hugely successful Erasmus international student programme has argued that devolved administrations including our National Assembly should refuse to ratify any Brexit deal unless the programme’s future is secured.
Hywel Ceri Jones served for more than 20 years as the European Commission’s Director of Education and Training Policy, later being appointed Director General for Employment, Social Policy and Industrial Relations.
During this period he was also responsible for the launch of the Erasmus scheme, the largest inter-university and student exchange programme in the world.
In a speech at Cardiff Metropolitan University to mark the 30th anniversary of Erasmus, Dr Jones said: “By 2020 the Erasmus programme will have involved over nine million in all – students, apprentices, youth volunteers and staff. It has engaged virtually all European higher education and, through its Eras-
mus Mundus component, it connects universities across the globe, with its quality Erasmus brand widely recognised throughout the world. ‘Doing an Erasmus’ has become a tried and trusted way for young students to enhance their knowledge and skills, and thereby their employability and career prospects.”
Dr Jones said the original concept of the Erasmus programme dated back to the mid-1970s, when European education ministers decided “to promote joint courses of study between universities and higher education institutions”.
He said: “I had proposed the idea of developing such joint study programmes, as a result of my personal experience when working previously at Sussex University. Its School of European Studies had broken new ground in the UK by providing organised opportunities for all its students, whatever their major discipline, to pursue a year abroad as an integral and recognised part of their degree programme. I was convinced that such an idea could be developed on a European-wide basis.
“The Commission worked over a period of 10 years from 1976-86 to demonstrate that the scheme could work in practice, despite the diversity of our national systems for academic recognition and student financing.
“The organised mobility of students was, and continues to be, the idea which caught the wider popular imagination, but the key to the continuing long-term success of the programme lies in its basic architecture.
“It is often still described incorrectly as an exchange programme, missing the central point of the programme’s importance to the long-term mission of universities, which seek to embed a strategy of internationalisation though partnerships in their teaching programmes.”
Internationalisation is, argued Dr Jones, “vital, economically, socially and culturally. Acting as key hubs of development, linking with regional and private sector partners, they are in a strong position to contribute to dynamic and inclusive growth in Wales, exploiting their networks of worldwide collaboration”.
With Brexit negotiations now under way, Dr Jones said it was time to defend Erasmus and its sister programme Horizon 2020.
He said: “These two programmes dovetail perfectly with our long-term strategic interests, both as universities and for Wales as a whole. They hook us into a range of global partnerships which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate by new bilateral efforts if we had to replace the multilateral framework of partnerships painstakingly and successfully built up over the last 40 years. It would clearly be to our great disadvantage if we were to fail to continue in this shared EU-wide diplomatic and economic investment in ‘soft power,’ which pays off over the long term with many diplomatic, economic and cultural advantages flowing from the friendships, knowledge and experience gained from the time spent by alumni in the UK.
“This is the moment for the UK, with backing from the devolved Governments, to reaffirm commitment to full and continued engagement in both programmes, anchored in a new cooperation agreement with our European partners which could also embrace security, environmental and cultural questions.
“Together with the growing pressures for the UK to secure continued membership of the internal market and protect our economy and our jobs, we could then at last be on a better track for the negotiations. If this does not succeed, our devolved Governments and Parliament should not agree to the deal.”
BREXIT MAY or may not be about to cut us off from Europe, but there is something we could all do to stay connected to the wider world and boost our chances of employment – learn another language.
A private school near where I live has a number of foreign pupils who have come to Wales to study fulltime or just for a couple of terms to brush up their English language skills.
It is ironic that at a time when we are rightly boosting Welsh language skills in schools and teaching visitors English, we are falling behind on our own foreign language skills.
A survey by the British Council Wales shows more than a third of Welsh schools now have less than 10% of Year 10 pupils (14 to 15-yearolds) studying a modern foreign language (MFL).
At 44% of schools in Wales, there are fewer than five pupils studying a MFL at AS-level and 61% have fewer than five foreign language pupils at A-level.
A third of all modern languages departments in our schools depend on non-British EU nationals for their staff and those departments are shrinking – 64% have just one or two full-time teachers.
All the signs are that the situation is only going to get worse.
Take-up of MFL is continuing to fall in Years 10 and 11, suggesting it will decline further next year and beyond, the British Council warns in its Language Trends Wales report.
And Brexit may make this even worse. The report says: “The majority of schools report that they have not yet seen any changes in pupil attitude or take-up as a result of the UK’s decision in 2016 to leave the EU.
“However, those who do report having seen changes, comment that the impact has been negative both on pupils’ views of the importance of learning a foreign language and on staff confidence in the country’s wish to employ non-British EU nationals.”
Teachers are said to be extremely worried about the future of MFL and the British Council Wales is calling for urgent action from the Welsh Government, but it is parents and pupils who should also act.
Foreign swaps, where pupils stay with a family abroad to practise another language and then host a child back, have fallen out of fashion. Parents appear to be worried about child protection. They may also realise these visits are hard work.
They and their children may also view languages as a poor choice in an overcrowded curriculum.
The report attributes the decline in Year 10 pupils taking an MFL to the number of compulsory subjects pupils are required to study and the introduction of the Welsh Baccalaureate.
Again this is ironic. The Welsh Baccalaureate aims to extend pupils’ skills and offer a broader range of learning. Somehow it is narrowing them elsewhere.
In an era when we are told education should be skills-based and when we are awaiting the new curriculum – also aimed at improving pupil skills – it would be hard to find a subject more obviously a skill and more obviously useful for work and life than learning another language.
The Donaldson Review stated that the four purposes of the new curriculum in Wales are that all children and young people will become:
Ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives;
Enterprising, creative contributors who are ready to play a full part in life and work;
Ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world and;
Healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.
Learning another language helps fulfil all those aims.
We have proved we can teach Welsh alongside English and English alongside Welsh in our schools. We have the skills and there is no reason not to apply them to other languages.
Jenny Scott, director of the British Council Wales, has warned: “There’s no doubt that Wales needs a new generation of linguists to help deliver Welsh Government’s aspirations for a prosperous and outward-looking Wales.
“The continued decline in numbers learning languages is very worrying, especially in the light of Brexit, which means that more than ever businesses will need language skills to help seal deals with international customers.”
Learning another language not only helps the economy but is also soft diplomacy in an ever-uncertain world.
At the very least, it makes ordering drinks easier on holidays abroad.