Page 12 - The-Academic-value-of-mobility-2018

dent exchange. They were also more likely to state that they declined an exchange
due to a lack of study guidance than the Finnish students. 13

Guidance can be developed

A review of Swedish HEIs’ applications to participate in the Erasmus+ programme
indicates that a great deal of the support that HEIs give to students, as regards
mobility, focuses more on practical supportive measures than academic ones.
Study guidance and other forms of academic support are mentioned much less
than other forms of support. Few HEIs mention that outward students meet study
guidance counsellors or that they have an academic contact person at their home
HEI. 14

The image that becomes apparent from the applications is that HEIs transfer the
responsibility for the academic aspects of the exchange to the receiving HEI. One
question is thus the extent to which HEIs clarify for themselves and for students
the ways in which student exchanges provide academic benefits and are part of
the studies at home.

Guidance at Swedish HEIs is organised and conducted in many different ways.
Some of the project’s proposals for working methods are already used in one way
or another at some HEIs, while others may be partially or entirely untested. The
purpose of the proposals is to highlight efforts that can contribute to improving
HEIs’ student guidance, which, in the long term, contributes to increasing the
number of outward exchange students.

The project’s thesis is that proactive guidance and support contributes to stu-
dents being more likely to go on exchanges and to increasing the quality of these
exchanges. The proposals are intended as inspiration for each HEI’s continued
development of guidance work and their advocacy for internationalisation. They
are useful both in the guidance of programme students and for students study-
ing freestanding courses, even if the conditions for long-term planning and the
opportunities for reaching out to these groups differ.

13 UHR, Cimo, SIU, Living and learning – Exchange studies abroad, 2013.
14 UHR, En bild av högskolans internationalisering – En analys av svenska lärosätens
ansökningar om Erasmus Charter for Higher Education, 2015.

11