Of all the disruptions caused by COVID-19, one that was felt drastically by the student population was the disruption to international mobility for students who wished to pursue their studies abroad.
A quarter of students’ mobility periods were suddenly cancelled, most of the students had to leave their exchange destination but found major problems such as loss of transportation to return home and problems with accommodation, 24% of Italian students and 19% of Asian students experienced discrimination based on their nationalities, and 7% of students reported they will not get any grant for their studies abroad.
But not all news is bad – as three-quarters of international mobility students got support from their home universities – with the most common form of support being with course schedules and their academic programme. They also got support with mental and health wellbeing.
The report Student Exchanges in Times of Crisis – Research report on the impact of COVID-19 on student exchanges in Europe, compiled by the Erasmus Student Network (ESN), presented a snapshot in time and the perspective of students in the midst of the crisis situation.
It also made a number of recommendations, such as the need for governments, and Erasmus+ National Agencies to consistently provide exchange students with reliable information, to ensure that student support is available for international students, in the form of psychological, logistical and medical support, and to ensure that accommodation information is available, especially at a time when the mobility period is interrupted.
Other recommendations included equal access to online learning tools for students, the implementation of action in learning activities to encourage interaction with the rest of the student population, and the need for supporting structures to be put in place to allow for impact assessment and support the recovery of international student mobility.
The ESN is one of the biggest student organisations on a European level. It acts in the field of student mobility and internationalisation of higher education, and provides support services to over 350,000 international students by facilitating their mobility period.
