Brussels, 30/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - The Community's Erasmus programme for mobility and co-operation in higher education is continuing its successful course. In 2007-2008, student exchanges under the scheme grew by 5.2 % compared to the previous academic year, the European Commission said on Thursday 30 July. The increase for study mobility alone was 2.1 %. “The fact that the programme has helped 2 million students go abroad for studies and placements since its launch in 1987 makes Erasmus a European success story,” commented European Commissioner Ján Figel'. In order to offer similar opportunities to all young people who want to go abroad for learning, the commissioner announced that a public consultation exercise “on the best strategy to achieve this objective” was being launched. The figures published reveal that, over the 21-year period from 1987 to 2008, some 1,846,600 students have undertaken a study period under the Erasmus programme. In 2007/08 alone, 162,695 Erasmus students studied abroad and 20,002 had traineeships abroad. However, despite the overall increase in participants, the rate of exchange is beginning to flag, with 10 countries even recording negative growth. In others, such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the number of Erasmus students has increased. The figures show that traineeships abroad, a new feature of the Erasmus scheme, are likely to grow over the coming years. For the moment, the countries sending most Erasmus students as a share of their student population are Liechtenstein (6.43 %), Austria (1.77 %), the Czech Republic (1.54 %) and Spain (1.41 %). (I.L./transl.rt)