Students with a comparable level of education from other European countries spend an average of more than 4 weeks abroad for their studies. Spain (7.7 weeks), Latvia (7.4 weeks) and Austria (7 weeks) are the countries closest to the Netherlands. Students from Greece and Cyprus close the queue with about two weeks of border crossing during the entire study period. The study did not provide an explanation for this difference.
Between 2014 and 2021, almost 38,000 MBO students went abroad, while around 14,000 came to the Netherlands from other countries.
Pandemic
According to researchers, there are two sectors in secondary vocational education that stand out. Almost half of all students taking ‘food, environment and hospitality’ courses went abroad, and around a quarter of students took ‘care, welfare and sport’ courses. Sports students mostly go to Austria.
Students who come to the Netherlands from abroad mostly come from Belgium, Türkiye and Germany.
European countries want 6 to 8 percent of their students to go abroad for internships or studies. Before the outbreak of the corona virus, the Netherlands was well above this figure. During the pandemic, mobility decreased drastically. This is still visible, although according to Nuffic the percentage has increased again.
