Turing Scheme

(asked on 14th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will provide details of the funding arrangements for (a) universities, (b) colleges and (c) schools under the proposed Turing scheme; and whether those institutions will be required to participate in a competitive bidding process for that scheme.


Answered by
Michelle Donelan Portrait
Michelle Donelan
Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology
This question was answered on 19th January 2021

The government is committed to international education exchanges. The Turing scheme will be backed by over £100 million, providing funding for around 35,000 students in universities, colleges and schools to go on placements and exchanges overseas, starting in September 2021.

We will be making further information available very shortly to enable providers across the UK to prepare to bid for funding when applications open in the coming weeks for placements to take place from September 2021. This will include information on how applications will be assessed, and funding allocated and we plan to have a call for bids much like Erasmus+. Successful applications will receive funding for administering the scheme and students taking part will receive grants to help them with the costs of their international experience.

This scheme will be demand-led and will be open to bids from providers across the UK. As such, there is no projection as to the number of students from each nation or specific limits for any specific region.

On tuition fees, we expect these to be waived for Turing scheme participants consistent with the arrangements for Erasmus+.

On participant numbers, the National Agency collects data on Erasmus+ participation by devolved administration, available here: https://www.erasmusplus.org.uk/statistics.

Data for the programme year 2020/2021 is not currently available.

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