Brussels, 01/04/2004 (Agence Europe) - The number of Erasmus students increased by 7% over the 2002/2003 period compared to 2001/2002, reaching over one million since the scheme was launched in 1987, reports established by national Socrates-Erasmus agencies say. Spain remains the preferred destination of students and Germany the place where most teachers wish to go. The number of teachers has constantly risen, from 7,800 in 1997/98 to 17,000 in 2002/2003.
In 2002/2003, national Socrates-Erasmus agencies noted a total of 124,000 Erasmus students, of which nearly 108,000 were originally from the EUR 18 (the Fifteen plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), and a little over 16,000 from the acceding and candidate countries for 2002: 2003.
The rise in the number of outgoing students was the largest in Germany (11%), Portugal (12%) and Luxembourg (14%). The study areas most asked for were business management and social sciences.
For teachers, languages and philology were the fields that were most requested. Finland, Liechtenstein, the Czech Republic, Malta and Belgium are the countries where there was the highest rate of teachers leaving.
The Socrates programmes and its Erasmus action, adopted on 24 January 2000 and extending till end 2006, are currently open to 30 countries: the 15 European Union Member States, the three EEA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), and twelve associated countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia).
From 1987-1988 to 1999-2000, nearly 750,000 university students completed a period abroad in the context of Erasmus and over 1,800 universities (or other higher education establishments) currently participate in the programme.
For the period 2000 to 2006, the EU budget allocates around EUR 950 million to Socrates, with 160 million reserved for Erasmus action. In each country, the public authorities, universities and other organisations offer additional sources of funding.