Education Minister Iris Rauskala and the OeAD’s Managing Director Jakob Calice open the #Erasmusdays in Austria
Vienna, 9 October 2019 – To kick off the #Erasmusdays 2019 the Federal Minister Iris Rauskala and the OeAD’s Managing Director Jakob Calice visited the Neue Mittelschule/Vienna Bilingual School ‘In der Krim’ in Vienna's 19th district this morning. All of Austria is celebrating the successful mobility programme Erasmus+ with flash mobs, dance and music performances, exhibitions, competitions, discussion panels and information events. The #Erasmusdays 2019 will take place from 10 to 12 October and all locations in Vienna and the federal provinces can be found online.
‘We are celebrating the mobility programme for good reason: Erasmus+ is growing and never before have so many people been on educational stays abroad across Europe,’ said the Minister of Education and Science Iris Rauskala at the opening of the #Erasmusdays 2019. Austria has taken part very successfully in EU education programmes since 1992. Since then more than a quarter of a million people from Austria have taken part in mobility measures across borders with Erasmus+ and its predecessor programmes. Rauskala: ‘I would like to express my sincere thanks to the teachers and pupils here at “In der Krim” and all over Austria for their commitment to the Erasmus community. They bring Europe into our classrooms and thus strengthen European cohesion.’
Jakob Calice, managing director of the OeAD, adds: ‘For us as the implementing agency it is particularly important that everyone who wants to go abroad has the possibility to do so. For our schools this means that access to the programme must be simple and unbureaucratic. The successful applications from schools for the current and coming school year show that we are on the right track: Thanks to relatively low-threshold programme tracks we are supporting 142 school projects in 2019, which represents an increase of more than 40 per cent compared to the previous year.’
In total, more than € 47 million in EU funding will go to the Austrian education system in 2019. This will enable around 23,000 stays abroad to be approved, including 8,470 students, 6,590 pupils, 2,660 teachers and 770 apprentices.
Erasmus+ in Austria: figures and data for all federal provinces