About 411,000 Czechs have participated in international exchanges as part of the European Erasmus+ scholarship programme in the last 25 years, according to information provided to CTK by the Czech National Agency for International Education and Research (DZS).
By 2023, the programme had taken university students on 121,540 study visits and 22,628 practical placements. Staff from Czech universities went on more than 56,800 training and educational trips.
From 1998 to last year, 450,000 people from abroad visited the Czech Republic thanks to Erasmus+. As many as 118,500 university students came to the Czech Republic for study and nearly 30,000 for practical placements.
Almost 32,000 primary and secondary school pupils also travelled abroad via Erasmus+ between 2014 and 2023.
Between 1998 and 2021, Czech participants mostly travelled to Germany, Spain and the UK. From the other side, Slovaks, Turks, Spaniards, Poles and French were the most frequent visitors to the Czech Republic. Last year, the Erasmus+ programme saw a total of 31,000 trips by Czechs in all sectors of education.
According to a 2022 study by DZS in collaboration with the STEM/MARK polling agency, international travel contributes to overall life satisfaction. Participants become more confident and more likely to use a foreign language at work. They are also more open-minded in their views and better able to cooperate in an international environment.
Students said in the survey that the trips abroad helped them improve their foreign language skills and allowed them to experience foreign countries and cultures. On the other hand, the most common reasons preventing students from going abroad were lack of money, lack of interest, or lack of knowledge of a foreign language.
Erasmus started in 1987 and the Czech Republic joined in 1998. It is the largest European education programme, open not only to university students, but also to secondary and primary school pupils, teachers, youth workers and sports coaches.
Erasmus started with 11 participating countries, and was originally aimed at university students only. In 2014, the programme was expanded to Erasmus+, covering more types of participants and available to all sectors of education.
