Brussels, 20/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 20 October, the Commission announced that the Erasmus+ programme will provide €2.2 billion in 2016 for education projects for young people and teachers. Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, said: “Erasmus+ offers incredible opportunities for a broad range of people and projects…I am proud that we will have €2.2 billion in 2016 to support thousands of great ideas that will help create more open classrooms, support young people's creativity and help us build more tolerant societies”.
The funds will go towards developing opportunities for nearly 600,000 young people to study, train, volunteer or participate in youth exchanges and projects abroad. Further opportunities will be available for 200,000 teachers, educators and youth representatives to continue their professional development. The Commission explained that it is focusing funding on supporting projects designed to make education and training systems more inclusive and to address the growing diversity of classrooms across Europe and help tackle the risks of youth radicalisation. The Commission explained that a general call for proposals had been launched and that it had also published a Programme Guide that would enable institutions and individuals to start preparing to submit their project proposals, which will be selected according to competitive selection procedures. (Original version in French by Isabelle Lamberty)