Open letter to Spanish institutions to guarantee the safety of students in mobility
Last month, la Coordinadora de Representantes de Estudiantes de Coordinadora de Representantes de Estudiantes de Universidades Públicas – CREUP jointly with Erasmus Student Network – ESN Spain Student Network – ESN Spain requested to the Minister of Universities and the Minister of Health of Spain the coordination of the different organizations with university mobility to support and establish measures to ensure the rights of students in the next academic year.
CREUP urge an increase in the financing of the costs of PCRs or antigen tests requested, in an attempt to avoid antigen tests requested, trying to prevent that this requirement does not become an extra-economic barrier to families with less economic barrier for families with fewer resources
We are very concerned that people who are planning to participate in mobility programmes, whether they are Erasmus+ programmes or exchanges in America, Asia, Africa or Oceania, can see themselves in the situation of having to make a long-term stay in a foreign state without having received the vaccine against COVID-19.
Vaccinating the students who will be engaged in a mobility programme will facilitate their mobility requirements (in terms of travelling to the countries of destination). It will help to preserve their health during their stay abroad.
Vaccination and the pursuit of immunity must occur before the start of the mobility. Once it starts, the students won’t be able to return to our territory to receive the doses. Having to return to your country to be vaccinated involves very high costs: flights and those derived from paying the corresponding PCRs or antigen tests requested. Health cannot be in the hands of those who can afford it, so it is so essential that the student starts his stay abroad in a vaccinated state.
Most students who participate in mobility programs do so for nine months, so if they are not vaccinated before they leave, the vaccination of these thousands of people must be postponed until June 2022, when they are expected to return home.
To guarantee students’ health and safety during their mobility, some Autonomous Regions such as Catalonia, Asturias, Andalusia and Castilla y León have already included the students in their vaccination protocols. However, we are still demanding that that must happen on a national level, not a regional one.
From CREUP and ESN Spain, we believe that mobility is an essential and enriching part of the enriching part of the university education, and we will work for these measures and the support of the institutions so that no one who wants to institutions so that no one who wants to, loses the opportunity to experience it.
