So what is #Starmer trying to do?
Erasmus isn't an educational scheme. It's an #EU social engineering scheme, designed to get students to make friends across Europe and thereby become more #Europhile. Bit late for that, post-#Brexit. 🙄
There's no electoral benefit in throwing money at the youth, who mostly don't vote. The students who do vote are too angry to vote Labour even when bribed.
This revived #ErasmusScheme looks like £¾ billion/yr wasted on ppl who won't vote Labour.
END THREAD.
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#BorisJohnson's replacement #TuringScheme was smaller but more equitable, with lower out-of pocket costs. Starmer's revived #ErasmusScheme will in theory be eligible to a broader pool, including apprentices. But if they have to pay for travel, it won't be open in practice.
The costs are huge: €650m in the first year, €850m for each following year. That's about £750m a year. There are ~800,000 UK school-leavers every year, so this is about £900 per head for every school-leaver.
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THREAD: The UK's politics of #Erasmus are bizarre. #Starmer has created basically what the Americans call pork: a huge giveaway to a favoured group.
In this case, the pork takes the form of foreign jaunts for students. Great fun, but the gains of studying maths in Milan or Munich rather than Manchester are more social than educational.
The #ErasmusScheme is mostly for the middle class. Too many of its upfront costs are unfunded, ruling out many working-class students. #ukpol
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Well this is astonishing: The Turing Scheme is inferior to Erasmus and doesn't work very well. Who'd have thought it [heavy irony]?
"Students find Erasmus replacement scheme inadequate, analysis finds"
Claire McNab
iamBullivant