Euro visions: Even if we can stand alone – should we?

I know this is hard to believe, but the jumped up Eurocrats at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) have somehow refused me media accreditation to cover the Eurovision Song Contest again.

This year the 68th edition of the longest-running annual international televised music competition in the world is in Malmö in Sweden, and I was all set to rock up with my branded notepad and pencil to ascertain the views of the 37 acts on the Bologna process, the new European Student Card and the ongoing evolution of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).

I’m sure it’s not that my coverage was to be impossibly niche, it’s that security is pretty tight this year – Israel’s participation means that several demonstrations have been booked representing both sides of the war, along with a Quran-burning event organised by a couple of far-right extremists, such is the country’s commitment to freedom of speech.

Thankfully, that’s not a scenario that appears in Arif Ahmed’s proposed Office for Students (OfS) guidance on freedom of speech. Yet.

Nevertheless, I’m off to Stansted later to stay on an industrial estate in Copenhagen anyway, where I’ll split the week between hanging around university campuses in Denmark and Sweden by day, and indulging pretty much my only hobby by night.

And naturally, I thought I’d start the week by moaning about Brexit.

Before the party is over

With our association to Horizon Europe settled late last year, the main thing that UK higher education thinks it’s missing out on following EU withdrawal is Erasmus+, the student mobility programme that always saw twice as many European students coming here than the other way around.

There’s little that’s more symbolic of little England thinking than its replacement – a Capita-operated short(er) placement scheme that doesn’t fund inbound activity at all (maybe we were counting them in net migration figures), that has already seen the number of higher education students supported to go fall by 6,000 in just two years.

Meanwhile across the EU, there have been developments. One initiative transforms existing student ID cards into a European Student Card so that students can benefit from facilities, libraries and discounts as they interrail their way around Europe’s campuses.

The Erasmus+ App is an integrated way for Erasmus students to access all the practical administration associated with their mobility programme. And Erasmus Without Paper is a digital solution connecting systems in use at universities, allowing them to manage their Erasmus+ mobilities online.

Then a few weeks ago the EU Commission announced that it was seeking an internal mandate to begin negotiations with the UK about a reciprocal deal to “facilitate youth mobility” – giving those aged 18 to 30 eligibility for a four year general visa which would allow studying, training, working or travelling.

It’s an arrangement we already have with countries as diverse as Australia, Canada, India, Japan, South Korea and Uruguay – but it took mere minutes for Rishi Sunak to reject it because it sounded like free movement, with Keir Starmer joining in to neutralise the wedge, just in case anyone was tempted to believe that Labour might have something positive (or indeed anything) to say to anyone under 50.

Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs at King’s College London and the director of UK in a Changing Europe, summed it all up with:

Clearly there is a debate to be had about the costs and the benefits of a youth mobility scheme, but I find it utterly depressing that both of the major political parties, one of which will form a government after the next election, do not know the difference between free movement and a limited youth mobility scheme which involves visas.

Always on the run

EU-wide youth and student mobility isn’t just about speeding up queues in your local Costa – in pretty much every country’s higher education strategy I’ve read recently, the significant benefits of better cross-cultural understanding and competence, the development of cross-cultural networks, enhanced global perspectives and language proficiency for both employment and life in general all feature heavily.

In the Erasmus+ Higher Education Impact Study, over 70 per cent of former Erasmus+ students said that they had a better understanding of what they want to do in their future careers when they returned, 80 per cent were employed within three months of graduation, and 72 per cent said their experience abroad helped them get their first job.

And the Erasmus+ Higher Education Strategic Partnerships and Knowledge Alliances Impact Study found that Erasmus+ cooperation projects made universities better prepared for digital transformation, two out of three said EU-wide projects contributed to increasing social inclusion and non-discrimination in higher education, and the EU’s Digital Opportunity traineeship initiative is giving students from all disciplines of study the opportunity to gain hands-on digital experiences.

But probably of most significance in President Ursula von der Leyen’s “European Strategy for Universities” is communication on a blueprint for a European Degree.

Late in March, the EU unveiled proposals for a more interconnected and competitive European Higher Education Area (EHEA) – including a substantial increase in the Erasmus program budget from €9 billion to €27 billion, and the formation of 60 European University Alliances.

It’s all designed to pave the way for the introduction of the European Degree – a concept that will allow students to receive a joint degree from multiple universities across Europe.

Last September the Council of Europe’s Standing Conference of Ministers of Education held a major event on ensuring that everyone is able to play their part in democratic processes, with priority given to supporting the participation of students in democratic life and decision-making processes, including through education on human rights and core democratic values such as pluralism, inclusion, non-discrimination, transparency and accountability.

UK minister Robert Halfon was apparently there, although it’s not clear whether he fessed up to his proud record of causing the creation of food banks on campus, forcing students to carry ID to vote, or disengaging both from NUS and from any alternative arrangements for talking to students almost two years ago to the day.

Visit my friends in France or take a long walk to Vienna

Also on the agenda at the Standing Conference was a proposal for a European Degree that is set to take student mobility a step further – a new type of qualification awarded after transnational Bachelor, Master, or Doctoral programmes that will be automatically recognised everywhere in the EU, based on a common set of criteria agreed at European level.

A new policy lab will develop detailed guidelines and action plans for the implementation of a European degree with national experts, higher education institutions, quality assurance/accreditation agencies, students, and economic and social partners.

A new European degree forum will monitor progress and provide guidance, gathering high-level representatives from EU countries, key organisations in quality assurance and recognition, and representatives from economic and social partners.

And there will be Erasmus+ support for several European degree Pathway Projects to enable EU countries, along with their accreditation and quality assurance agencies, universities, students, economic and social partners, to navigate the pathway towards a European degree.

All on the basis that the key challenges of our time are becoming increasingly global, and that future generations will need to be equipped with the competences and skills that European societies will need to thrive in an ever more interconnected world.

Underpinning it all will be a new European quality assurance and recognition system in higher education – that will build transnational cooperation of higher education institutions in Europe, increase the ability to respond quickly to fast-changing societal needs, and contribute to the automatic recognition of learning experiences abroad and qualifications.

And a separate sub-proposal is also aimed at developing more attractive and sustainable academic careers – ensuring that national higher education systems address the uneven recognition of the diverse roles staff take on in addition to research (teaching, the development of transnational education activities, micro-credentials, mainstreaming sustainable development), creating a working environment that offers high-quality and inclusive education, and ensuring knowledge sharing and relevant skills provision in a fast-moving world.

As well as driving labour-market relevant opportunities, interdisciplinarity components and the acquisition of horizontal and digital skills, the project is also going to tackle unnecessary national rules on final exams, grading scales, and workloads for joint programmes; limitations on multilingualism, prescriptive rules on physical presence; and the lack of recognition of blended or online learning.

Put, my, self. On a pedestal

So ingrained in my psyche is the anti-Europeanism of the country where I work that when I’m reading the PDFs and the declarations, a little bit of my subconscious can hear voices telling me that we don’t need all of this, that the UK’s higher education system and its degrees retain a global reputation for quality, and that we’re losing nothing by being frozen out of projects of this ilk.

Just as the British press will be full of stories suggesting that the UK would be better out of Eurovision when, on Saturday, our entry Olly Alexander comes a respectable 12th instead of winning the whole thing like we used to in the olden days.

There are those in the UK that would attack member states’ ten-year plans for higher education that seek to drive up digital competence, interdisciplinary competence, problem-based learning and sustainability education – partly because they signal systems that offer less autonomy than that we imagine we have in the UK.

But it’s the classic misreading of national planning and European coordination that we’ve had drummed into us by the Telegraph and the Times. Not only are these initiatives about skills and citizenship, they’re also antidotes to right-wing populism that protect, rather than erode, academic freedom.

If nothing else, add up the initiatives at both national and European level, and they feel like systems that are proud of higher education, convinced of its role in shaping a better future, and are prepared to substantially invest in it. Boom bang a bang.