• Saturday, October 30, 2010
• Inter Press Service

An exchange programme was launched this week for university students in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, to foster a broader sense of belonging to South America's Mercosur bloc. The Mercosur Mobility Programme in Higher Education, a pilot project financed by the European Union, was launched Tuesday at an inaugural ceremony at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA).

Training for participating academics and officials will begin in December, and the first call for applications from students will be issued in 2011. Fifty public and private universities in the four Southern Common Market (Mercosur) countries have already registered with the programme, and 12 training workshops have been planned for some 430 university professors and international cooperation officials.

Cristina García, a native of Uruguay and director of the project, told IPS that students from any university within the bloc are eligible for the student mobility programme, although the educational exchanges will take place at the higher education centres actively participating in the project. Students will apply and be shortlisted at their own universities, but a commission made up of representatives from all four countries will be responsible for the final selection.

Scholarships, covering travel to another Mercosur country and study for one semester at one of the participating universities, will be provided to 180 selected students. The grant includes travel, accommodation, registration fees (if applicable) and other specified expenses.

Under the programme, the courses taken abroad will be accredited by the student's home university. The project is intended to strengthen the sense of collective identification with Mercosur among the bloc's societies and citizens, which is weak according to a number of studies and polls.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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