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Re Erasmus being for privileged kids, I am walking proof of that not being the case. My dad was a factory worker, who left school at 14. He was diagnosed with MS when I was just about to start school. My mum is a psychiatric nurse, but cared for my dad full time until... /1
I started secondary school. I ended up going to university, studied Law and German in Cork, and went to Konstanz in my Erasmus year. Why/how? I think a combination of my parents, the quality of my education, and the Irish state’s education policies had a lot to do with it. /2
My parents placed incredible emphasis on education. My dad bought an entire set of World Book encyclopedias, which I spent my childhood reading. My primary school was mostly local farmers, who had land and figured they had a future guaranteed income. /3
I knew we didn’t have that luxury. By and large, the teachers were excellent. To attend university, you had to study a modern European language. I kept on German, which I kept up in university. Added to Irish, language learning was just part of education. /4
And importantly, there were no student fees, or at least nothing like £9000. I even remember my mum telling me of that announcement when I was a child, and saying we would be able to go to university. I’m not saying class isn’t a barrier, but it wasn’t anything like in England./5
So, if someone can find a statistic that says in England, Erasmus was used mostly be privileged kids, that’s because of the lack of emphasis on languages in England and the significant class and financial barriers in England. /6
It has nothing to do with the Erasmus programme, which has transformed the lives of many people from all sorts of backgrounds, mine included. 7/7
This has engendered a much bigger reaction than I expected. For more informed, and less personal/anecdotal, analysis of Erasmus issues, please follow @Cardwell_PJ.
