Campus Europa

Italians live at home and Portuguese are super-multilingual. One of the most interesting international studies ever, reveals how life is like on Campus Europa.
Eurostudent, as the study is called, analysed several different aspects of studying in Europe. The study shows, for example, that it is much easier for students with a non-academic background to get into university in the Netherlands, whereas there are close to no students with a non-academic background to be found in Bulgarian or German universities.
The report, which is due to be published tomorrow, and will certainly lead to some debate in the education supplements in national papers across EU countries and beyond. Innit24 can already present some of the most interesting facts the study will reveal.
Students without a normal university-entrance diploma (such as the British A-Levels, the American High School Diploma, the Swiss Matura, and so on) find it much easier to get into university in England and Wales, whereas it is nearly impossible to do so in Lithuania and Germany, says Eurostudent.
Many students these days study a year abroad, but which county’s students do so the most? Here we see Norway, Germany and Finland scoring the best, Italy, Lithuania and Turkey can be found at the bottom of the list.
One very interesting fact that the study will reveal tomorrow, concerns the ability of students to speak two languages fluently. Here we see Portugal’s students to score best, followed by Slovenian and Swiss students. Again, it is the Turkish, which score worst of all participating countries.
For those of our reader who are still looking for a partner, the following fact might be rather interesting: Italy has the most single students, followed by Portugal and Scotland.
In contrast, the country with the most students already married is Norway, followed by Slovakia and Sweden.
Most Italians live with Mum and Dad (73%) (Could that be the reason why they are all single??). This love of living at home seems to be a Mediterranean thing though, as Spanish (64%) and Portuguese (55%) students do the same. On the other hand, students from more northern European countries can’t wait to get away from home. 79% of the Norwegian students live in rented/private flats/houses without their parents, as do 68% of the Finnish students and 65% of those studying in Germany and Austria. (This excludes students living in university halls.)
As I mentioned earlier, the full study will be published tomorrow. You may also want to check out Eurostudnet’s website for more details.
Schreiber

IS SOCIAL DEMOCRACY DEAD?

I think its fair to say that, from a political point of view, Gordon Brown is as dead as disco. His political insignificance is increasing from day to day, and the chances of him ever winning an election are as slim as Nicky Hilton.
But lets have a look at other countries: How do Labour or social democratic parties do on the European continent?
Many social democratic leaders seem to face (or have faced) similar political problems as Britain’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer. Germany’s Gerhard Schröder for example was once relatively popular, just like Brown. His No to the Iraq war made him be (together with former French president Jacques Chirac) respected by many, even though many other domestic decisions might have been of less greatness.
Today, Kurt Beck leads the German social democrats, after Schröder lost the election in 2005. Mr Beck is now, as junior partner in Angela Merkel’s so-called “Grand Coalition”, even more unpopular than Brown, and I doubt that he will ever be able to become German Chancellor.
The other country in which social democracy faces similar problems as in the UK is Spain. The election in March 2008 was big news across Europe, especially because the Spanish Kingdom was strongly divided. On one hand there was Mario Rajoy, a boring right-wing nebbish who seems like a poor actor trying to impersonate former Spanish PM José Marí Aznar. On the other hand, there was the (already relatively unpopular) PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who narrowly won the election.
Today, Zapatero is as unpopular as Aldi. This is to a large extend because of the economic situation (Spain’s unemployment rate is 10.7%). Very much like Brown, it is not only Zapatero’s fault that we ended up in this not too entertaining credit crisis, but both are incapable of dealing with the problem. The awful consequence is that this might now lead to Spain and Britain getting two politically incompetent PMs. The United Kingdom might soon have a Frisbee-throwing (how utterly ridicules are the pictures of David C. on holidays?!) PM David Cameron and Spain might return to Aznar-like politics (even though the Spanish conservatives are moving closer to the political centre).
It will be interesting to see if Europe’s social democratic and Labour parties will be able to recover from their leaders’ political inabilities in time for the next elections.
Schreiber