IGÉSR report: impact of the health crisis on European and international mobility

As part of its annual work programme 2020-2021, the IGÉSR was charge to assess the impact of the health crisis on European and international mobility in various audiences (pupils, students and apprentices). 

The context of the pandemic

The inspection report notes in its summary that “the health crisis caused by the spread of the Covid-19 virus all over the world since late 2019, and which affected France since early 2020, has profoundly disrupted mobility flows on a European and international scale, due to the spread of the contagion and the differentiated measures taken by the States to deal with it”.

The IGÉSR points out that this context “is all the more important given that the issue of mobility has been a central focus of educational institutions’ internationalisation policies for several years now, and that French president Macron has defined the objective for our school and university system to be able to welcome 500,000 foreign students by 2027”.

Reactive and efficient management of mobility in the crisis

From the interviews with those involved in the management, monitoring and implementation of European and international mobility (including Campus France), from the analysis of the health crisis, and from the documents and data that the inspection mission was able to consult, it can be concluded that “the national mobility ecosystem was generally responsive and effective in the face of the crisis and its unprecedented nature”.

Thus, the report notes, the “clearly stated policy in favour of international students and the establishment of welcome cooperation interfaces, particularly interministerial, deserve to be highlighted and extended in the post-crisis period with a view to better structuring the ecosystem”.

Social gaps widened by the health crisis for international students

After remining that France is the sixth host country for international students, the IGÉSR thinks that “the position of France seems protected in the short term in the global geopolitics of student mobilities”.

However, still according to the inspectors, the health crisis “has exposed and aggravated the precariousness of a large proportion of these international students in France in all areas (accommodation, food, work, health)”. But the report also stresses that international students were “the prime targets of emergency subsidies issued by the CROUSes in 2020-2021”, with up to 68% of subsidies allocated. In this respect, “the support and protection actions implemented for students, whatever their nationality, were positive aspects despite some room for improvement, for example in terms of social security cover”.

Opportunity for transformation

The health crisis as an “opportunity for transformation”. It is in these terms that the IGÉSR considers that “the health crisis has demonstrated the adaptation and resilience capacities of mobility actors”. In its occurrence, says the IGÉSR, the crisis forced the emergence of “new thinking on the place of international mobility in the strategies of the players, on the need to think about physical mobility that is more in line with the needs of the public of learners and the international policies of the institution, and on the importance of developing hybrid mobility, i.e. combining onsite and virtual mobility or 2.0 mobility via digital exchange platforms and applications”. The report nevertheless points out that the “first important point is the unanimity of the mission’s interlocutors on the priority of onsite mobility”.

List of recommendations

In addition to the analysis of the crisis and its immediate impacts on mobility, the report draws a list of recommendations resulting from this observation period, such as:

• improving the steering and monitoring of mobilities, particularly in terms of outward mobility and/or academic mobility;
• strengthening cooperation within the environment, especially with regard to “the composition and operation of crisis units, standard measures and procedures to be put in place and communication processes”;
• support for the resumption of outward mobility, with two main recommendations:
  • to take advantage of the French Presidency of the European Union in the first half of 2022 to design a “European mobility recovery plan including priorities for certain types of mobility and a communication plan to encourage the recovery”;
  • to organise an event “both unifying and reflective of the crisis, and offering perspectives, which could take the form of a conference on European and international mobility involving all the mobility stakeholders concerned”;
• the reception of international students. For the inspection mission, the aim here is to “learn the lessons of the crisis”. Amongst these, the IGÉSR notes several points for improvement in services, such as:
• improving the social security registration rate for foreign students by making “social security affiliation a compulsory step in the administrative registration of foreign students at their institution”;
  • increasing the number of French government scholarships issued to international students and encouraging “the creation of institutional scholarships exclusively for international students”;
  • the launch of “flash recruitment operations for targeted nationalities according to the strategic priorities of the MESRI and the institutions, within the framework of the ‘Études en France’ platform, but in derogation of its calendar”.