I read in a Guardian article (see link below) that the Govt have announced that we will not be sticking with Erasmus, an instead they will set up our own British scheme named after Alan Turing.
Clearly, it would be great if they do set up a scheme to pay for British students to study abroad, but what is with this constant hating on foreign students coming here?
First, they include them in the immigration figures (which they want to bring down), as if they’re something we want to reduce, or limit (people paying a sack of cash to come here for 3 to 5 years is not something we want to limit!). Next, it seems Johnson has marked the fact that lots of foreign students came to the UK in Erasmus+ seemingly as a negative.
Creating a a cohort of people with a positive impression of the UK builds our soft power. Instead, now they will just do their Erasmus somewhere else.
Additionally, ending Erasmus will literally cost us money (as we had so many come study here paying into our coffers), so I don’t understand why we didn’t just stay in it, and then also have this new Turing scheme!
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/dec/24/uk-students-lose-erasmus-membership-in-brexit-deal
– Sam (Secretary Swindon for Europe)
Leave a Reply