Europe United president rules out the student quota system
Aki Paasovaara, president of the Europe United, said Tuesday that the EU citizens equal access to universities across the bloc must remain untouchable.The statement follows an announcement by Danish science minister Helge Sander calling the amount of the Swedish medical students in Denmark "unacceptable". 314 of the 1173 students who will start studying medicine at the universities of Copenhagen, Århus and Southern Denmark after the summer are Swedish. The Swedish government has declared that it is ready to discuss the "doctor issue" on European level.
According to EUobserver, the minister for higher education of the French-speaking community in Belgium, Marie-Domenica Simonet, wants to limit the number of foreign students to 30 percent in fields with very high levels of foreigners from September 2006.
Meanwhile, Austria will cap the number of foreign students at its universities at 20 percent in a bid to restrict the number of German students accessing its medical faculties, despite a recent EU court ruling which declared earlier restrictions illegal.
"We’re not moving a millimetre from the Sorbonne declaration which emphasised the creation of the European area of higher education as a key way to promote citizens' mobility and employability. The treaty is untouchable and we accept no quotas" insisted Mr. Paasovaara.
"We must in particular look at the objective of increasing the international competitiveness of the European system of higher education. Closing doors from talented student just because they come from other country is not the solution" he added.
3 Comments:
I totally agree.
Competition between university facilities and between students will benefit the EU education system as a whole (and also the standard of graduates our universities turn out).
Any block to this free competition within Europe must be fought.
I know some universities in England are moaning a bit due to the number of Eastern European students. All the restrictions be is that the person should be able to due his/her studies in the teaching language. i.e. do them in English for an English university and fully pay his/her fees or graduate tax if they are going to Scotland.
Given that in the US, there are faculties, especially in sciences and engineering, with (including staff) up to 50%+ foreigners, I think some people haven't quite understood that science lives through the exchange of ideas. If they are qualified, let them study. Everything else is just throwing sand into one's own academic machinery.
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