Freya Kinsey
With the notorious Christmas Eve address of 2020, Boris Johnson announced that the United Kingdom would no longer be participating in the Erasmus+ programme as part of the Brexit deal to formally separate from the European Union. The news was received with shock and trepidation by students and educators around the country, as just 12 months earlier, Johnson had assured MPs that Brexit posed “no threat” to the UK’s participation in the Erasmus+ programme. The government unveiled its plans to implement a new, uniquely British replacement, the Turing Scheme, named for the father of modern computer science, with the first cohort set to undertake their global mobility placements in September 2021. On the 3rd of January 2024, the Department for Education published its first evaluation report of the Turing Scheme. This report officially codified the misgivings of the education and youth sector that had been expressed since the scheme’s inception: that in terms of effectiveness, reach, and long-term viability, the Turing Scheme is not a worthy replacement for what has been lost.
To be sure, the Department for Education’s report highlights the positive experiences of Turing Scheme participants: students who undertook a mobility placement in 2021/2022 reported that they felt the experience had improved their communication skills and ability to problem solve. 91% of HE and 80% of FE/VET participants also felt as if the experience had improved their future career prospects. However, these benefits are neither new nor unique to the Turing Scheme; Erasmus+ participants interviewed in 2021 reported similar levels of satisfaction with the impact of their mobility on their personal development and career prospects, highlighting that these benefits come from the experience of studying or working abroad.
A purported aim of the Turing Scheme was to improve funding opportunities for the most disadvantaged students to undertake placements abroad. Robert Halfon, Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, has described the scheme as “a real game-changer for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, empowering them with transformative opportunities abroad, a chance to experience other cultures, and learn vital skills for life and work.” Yet, evidence from the report highlights that the Turing Scheme has failed to meet this goal, particularly in the Higher Education (HE) sector. HE providers are frustrated by the lack of transparency on how funds are allocated, with some institutions receiving very different amounts of funding for the 2021-22 versus the 2022-2023 cohorts. Some students who were allocated funding also reported not receiving any payments until they were already abroad, or even until they had already returned home from their placement, requiring students to source alternative means of funding their mobility placements. The lack of consistency in available funds and in the payment timeline means that institutions cannot guarantee any amount of financial support to their students to undertake a mobility placement before beginning the application process, causing some students from disadvantaged backgrounds to drop out of their placements due to a lack of funds and dissuading others from applying at all. This poses a particular problem for the future of university courses for which a year abroad forms an essential and compulsory component, such as modern foreign languages, which are already vulnerable to budget cuts and falling student numbers.
The findings also revealed serious issues with the timeliness of the application process. Most higher education providers have found the application process difficult, lengthy, and confusing. It was common for providers, particularly in higher education, to report that the window of time required to complete the application form was too short (6 weeks for HE providers and 8 weeks for Further Education/Vocation Education Training providers). The application window also falls over the Easter period, obliging staff to continue working during a period of annual leave. Furthermore, students do not receive confirmation of their places until July, a time in which most teaching at UK institutions has been suspended for the summer, leaving them without the support of staff or scrambling to find visas and accommodation at the last minute. Likewise, the timeframe does not account for the varying start dates for the academic year in countries around the world, which often begin as early as July or August, giving students little time to get their affairs in order before uprooting their lives to move abroad.
Finally, the fact that the Turing Scheme is not a reciprocal programme calls into question its long-term viability as a replacement for Erasmus+ and the fate of international partnerships with UK institutions. Unlike Erasmus+, the Turing Scheme only facilitates the outgoing mobility of British students, without offering support for inbound students wishing to study or undertake placements in the UK. Keele University’s dean of internationalisation, Anita Hayes, questions, “How can we foster our international collaborations in teaching and researchS if we cannot support our partners to visit our campuses?” The lack of facilities for mutual exchange is emblematic of the government’s myopic approach to international partnerships post-Brexit. Reliance on the goodwill and hospitality of partners abroad to offer placements for British students without offering anything in return is not a sustainable system. If the government is truly committed to promoting the image of a ‘global Britain,’ it is imperative that the concerns of those in the youth and education sectors are listened to and that significant improvements are made to the delivery of the Turing Scheme.
Bibliography
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Lewis, Joe. ‘The Turing Scheme.’ August 30 2023. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9141/
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