HIGHER Education Minister Richard Lochhead will today reassure EU students that they are welcome in Scotland.
He will also confirm that the Scottish Government is stepping up efforts to ensure further and higher education is protected after Brexit.
Lochhead will make the commitment to a group of current EU students who are in Aberdeen on an Erasmus+ programme, the EU’s flagship cultural and educational project that has run for 30 years.
The whole of the UK’s involvement in the scheme has been threatened since MPs voted on January 8 against a clause to the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill that would have mandated the UK Government to seek full membership of the programme. No concrete proposals for any potential replacement have yet been decided.
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But Lochhead says Scotland may look to rejoin the scheme independently of the UK after Brexit. He said: “Scotland is an open and inclusive country. EU students will always be welcome here. We are stepping up our efforts to ensure our universities are seen across Europe as open for business.
“Thousands of Scottish students, teachers and young people have benefitted from the popular Erasmus+ scheme, while at the same time our campuses and country have been enriched by EU nationals choosing to live and study here.
“This much-cherished and respected learning, training and cultural programme is at serious risk – and we are clear that it must continue. Over the coming weeks we will make the case strongly to the UK Government that continued association with Erasmus+ is of the utmost importance. In the event the UK Government decides to abandon the programme, we will also be looking at the possibility of Scotland associating unilaterally.”
Proportionally, more Scots take part in Erasmus+ than from any other country in the UK. Between 2014 and 2018, 15,000 participants from Scotland reaped the benefits of the EU-led scheme, securing more than €90 million in funding.
At the start of this academic year, there were 2655 European students from 33 countries at Aberdeen University, and 709 staff – 17% of its workforce – one of Scotland’s largest European campus populations.
A Lords EU Committee report has warned leaving Erasmus would “disproportionately affect people from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with medical needs or disabilities”.
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