ERASMUS PROGRAMME / LLP Erasmus, taking part in the structure of one of the European Education and Youth Programs Socrates (General Education), which aims to make good use of the available education potentials and develop them and also to make the countries acknowledge mutually, is one of the programs of the European Community Commission’s that arranges the cooperation of the high education of the Socrates programs.It has been applied in the European Community countries since 1987 and it has been taken into the scope of Socrates programs in 1995. The program may be evaluated as one of the most attractive program of the European Education and Youth Programs in that since the year 2003 there has been a student transfer consisting of one million and a hundred thousands of students.

It has taken its name from Erasmus (1469-1536) who is a Dutch science man and who is one of the important representatives of the Renaissance Humanism in that he had been in the European countries both as a student and as an academician. 

The objectives of the program: To qualify the high education quality in Europe and strengthen the European dimension. This objective can be summarized as presenting the good applications in the different parts of the European countries to the benefit of the whole Europe.

Major activities in the frame of the program:

• Cooperation among the universities
• Circulation of the students and the university workers
• Acknowledgement of the degrees as academic and improvement of the transparency.

The Projects which are supported by ERASMUS

• Student and teaching staff transfer,
• Mutual works and projects for the development of the education programs,
• Application and implementation of the results which are derived from these works and projects,
• Construction of information webs belonging to the faculties and disciplines on the scale of Europe,
• Language courses and concentrated programs,
• Support to the works of European Credit Transfer System (ECTS),
• Mutual scientific visitations,
• Master and doctorate programs,
• Summer schools.

The students should apply to the Erasmus University Charter (EUC) and receive approval from EU Commission to attain the right to participate in the Erasmus programs of the universities. EU Commission assumes the institutional information given with the charter as true because of the presidency approvals of the universities. The latest date for the application of the programs is the day of November 1 every year. Erasmus University Charter (EUB) gives the universities the right to participate in the activities that are supported by Erasmus.

University of Gaziantep gained a positive result from the application that was made in November 1, 2003. The high education institutions’ number who participated in the program in the 2004 – 2005 education year is about 2200. The charter is valid till the end of the 2007 – 2013 education year.