Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools
Sections
You are here: Home Breaking news Spain cuts overseas student grants mid-term

Spain cuts overseas student grants mid-term

05 November 2013, 21:02 CET
— filed under: ,

(MADRID) - Spain's government got a slap on the wrist on Tuesday for surprising certain Spanish students by cutting off scholarship money right in the middle of their studies overseas.

As part of its crisis cost-cutting drive, the government cancelled scholarships for thousands of Spaniards taking part in the European Union exchange programme Erasmus, sparking complaints even from members of the governing party.

The cut was introduced in a decree published quietly on October 29, which restricted the scholarship to the poorest students in the programme and ended the payments to others.

The uproar forced Education Minister Jose Ignacio Wert into a U-turn on Tuesday. He said the government would top up the grants that had been cut, although only for the current year.

"The government recognises that those receiving these Erasmus scholarships this year did not know about the decision to focus the aid on poorer students," he told the upper house of parliament.

His about-turn followed censure by the European Commission. Its spokesman Oliver Bailly said in Brussels that the cut "should have been announced before the start of the university year, so as not to penalise the current Erasmus students".

The opposition Socialist Party said it would formally call in parliament for Wert to resign.

Wert has been the figurehead of some of the conservative government's most controversial reforms since it took power in 2011.

Aiming to stabilise the public finances, it has imposed cuts to education budgets and increases in fees, which have sparked strikes and mass protests.

The education sector staged its latest strike on October 24 and students have called another for November 20.


Document Actions