Rodríguez-Rodríguez MERCEDES, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Josefina DOMÍNGUEZ-MUJICA, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
There is no doubt about the growing importance that international student mobility has acquired at the highest levels of education in most countries. In the case of the European Union, this mobility has been related to the success of the Erasmus programme, today called Erasmus+. In the period 2014/2020, all the EU countries and the associated countries of Macedonia, Serbia, Iceland, Norway, and Turkey were involved in it, as well as many non-associated countries, through the External Action Instruments.
In the case of Spain, since the academic year 2016/2017 the figure of 40,000 Erasmus outgoing students and trainees was exceeded and the number of the incoming students and trainees has been always very high (more than 50,000 in the academic years 2017/2018 and 2018/2019, being a little less in 2019/2020 due to the pandemic). These incoming students and those from other programs reached the figure of 55,277. To them must be added a high number of foreigners tertiary students enrolling in Spanish universities or training centres either without taking advantage of exchange programs, or because they live in Spain. The mentioned two last cases can be related with these facts. By the one hand, with the prestige of Spanish universities beyond their own scope, supposing an activity of services’ export, as well as with the recognition of undergraduate and especially postgraduate degrees to satisfy the requirement of the highest level of training in their countries of origin. By the other hand, with the labour migration received by Spain since the beginning of the XXI century.
Accordingly, it is of great interest to analyse not only the mobility of study exchange programs, but also that the seek for a tertiary education interacts with the labour market and the life course of people, the objective of this research.
Mots clés : Spain|international students|tertiary education|labour market| immigration
A102912RM