Named after the theologian and humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1465-1536), who famously crossed Renaissance Europe promoting learning, the Erasmus program encourages mobility and individual development through education.

“Erasmus has been a complete success,” said John Macdonald, a spokesman for Education, Training, Culture and Youth European Commission. “Without the Erasmus grants the educational system of the Union would be very different, because Erasmus is the source of the Bologna Process. From the Erasmus grants to a number of proposals for a system of easily readable and comparable degrees, quality assurance higher education and an international credit system.
Humble origins

In its first year, only 3244 students participated in the pilot program. The country that sent more students abroad with the scholarship were the UK, with 925; the least, Portugal, with only 25. Spain sent 95.

Over time the program gained more fame, and thus more students. By 1987 only 11 Member States participated: Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and the UK. In 1992, Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Norway have been joined. From 97 and involving all EU countries, and in 1998 joined the Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Cyprus. A year later joined by Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Slovenia, Malta and Turkey since have joined.

According to the Commission in the past two decades the Germans -263,401 of them-have been major have taken the scholarship, followed by the French-262,768-and Spanish-235,850-. What country are the most popular destinations? Spain, France and Germany. Erasmus Most stay for about six months, and most of them are studying Business studies or social sciences.

Success material?

Despite the substantial increase of Fame program, in part, fostered by films such as L’Auberge espagnole “and the increase in the number of students choosing to go on Erasmus in recent years Spanish -22,322 took advantage in 2007 -, Macdonald said that in the larger context of European education, few take the opportunity.

At first sight it seems that everyone participates, but in reality only 3.5% of European students are going to Erasmus. That is, each year, at most 1% of Europeans participate. Despite the tremendous increase compared with the initial years, the growth rate has decreased, and to achieve the target set for European mobility by 2012 we need an increase of 9 or 10%. That is, over the next three years at least one million students need participate in achieving our goal. ”
Need for greater commitment

Macdonald also claims the need for greater financial support from Member States. “Each year more students participate, but we believe that much more could have had more financial commitment from the countries of origin. There is a central fund which has an annual budget of 440 million euros, but this is shared by all participating countries, and naturally there are more students with less money for each individual.

Today 90% of European universities: more than 4,000 institutions in 31 countries, participating in the scholarship. Since the Commission rely on a European future in which the Erasmus program will continue to facilitate the mobility of European students. We are confident that this will contribute to a greater commitment among countries, and the continued training of young people to form a more integrated Europe of tomorrow.