Without a quality education overcoming economic crisis is impossible, Director of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture Jordi Curell told the conference “EU higher education programmes: their role and effects in Western Balkans.”
Curell said that after 20 years of various educational programmes, EU wanted to pass good practices on to Western Balkans through new platforms, and reminded that a few weeks ago call for participation within Erasmus+ was open for Serbia.
Curell said that, among other things, programme envisioned mobility, meaning it would enable students from Serbia to spend three to six months attending courses in universities, e.g. in Poland or UK, and once they would return, their ECTS points would be acknowledged by their home faculty.
According to him, budget of Erasmus+ programme will be higher and finance 2.000 students and employees in the education sector annually.
Researches showed that unemployment rates among former Erasmus Mundus alumni were 23 percent lower, whereas each third student kept job in the enterprise in which he/she had underwent his/hers practice during students exchange, Curell said.
Head of Operations at the EU Delegation to Serbia Yolanda San Jose said that EU had so far invested 63 million euros in education reform in Serbia.
She said that further policy reforms were needed in order to modernise educational programme and align it with the needs of labour market, expressing a hope that Serbia would make the most of high level of IPA funding aimed at education projects.
