CALL FOR EVIDENCE

FOR AN INITIATIVE (without an impact assessment)

Title of the initiative

Learning opportunities (learning mobility) abroad in Europe for everyone

Lead DG – responsible unit

DG Education, Youth, Culture and Sport - Unit B.4: Erasmus+ Coordination

Likely Type of initiative

Commission proposal for a Council Recommendation

Indicative Timing

Q3-2023

Additional Information

https://education.ec.europa.eu/

A. Political context, problem definition and subsidiarity check

Political context

Learning mobility activities have proven to be highly valuable experiences for people in gaining knowledge, skills and competences needed for personal, educational, and professional development, as well as civic engagement and social inclusion. Learning mobility and cooperation across borders - both at transnational and international level - are strong drivers for enhancing the quality of education and training institutions and of organisations and stakeholders involved in non-formal and informal learning contexts and youth work. Cross-border experiences also actively contribute to positive attitudes about the EU and to the development of a European identity.

In her Political Guidelines, President von der Leyen expressed her commitment to making the European Education Area a reality by 2025, stressing the need to enable learners to move more easily between education systems in different countries.

The Commission Communication on achieving the European Education Area by 2025 announced that the Commission would update the learning mobility framework to enable more learners and teachers to overcome obstacles and benefit from a mobility opportunity, focusing on issues in the area of inclusion and the twin green and digital transitions, while encouraging balanced mobility.

Promoting cross-border learning mobility has also been highlighted by the Council as a key issue for cooperation under the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training towards the European Education Area and beyond (2021-2030).

Presenting a proposal for a Council Recommendation on learning mobility has been included in the Commission annual work programme as one the most important actions for 2023 in the field of education and training.

This initiative will also relate to the European Year of Skills in 2023, for example through focusing on removing barriers to mobilities for training, such as apprenticeships in the VET sector and traineeships in higher education.

Problem the initiative aims to tackle

Different sources identify a wide range of obstacles to learning mobility: the Mobility Scoreboard 1 , which was set up to monitor the progress of the 2011 Council Recommendation “Youth on the move” 2 , as well as sector-specific studies, Eurobarometer and other surveys. In the 2022 Eurobarometer survey on Youth and Democracy in the European Year of Youth only 15% of young people who took part in the survey said they have participated in studying, training or apprenticeship in another EU country 3 .

Some of the most pertinent impediments to learning mobility identified are the following:

·Lack of financial means;

·Lack of interest or lack of opportunities matching the interests;

·Perceived insufficient independence to go abroad for a longer period;

·Lack of support to disadvantaged learners.

·Insufficient foreign language skills;

·Lack of information about opportunities of leaning abroad for the prospective learners, trainees, apprentices and the host organisations;

·Barriers to recognition of learning mobility periods abroad;

·Lack of embedment of the opportunity for mobility in education and training programmes

·Diversity of compensation, health and safety standards and legal status and the lack of employers’ engagement (in case of apprentices and traineeships);

·For teaching staff and teachers:

oLack of support from schools to develop their competences abroad;

oLack of replacement staff for a teacher on mobility

Need for EU action

The EU needs to take action to deliver on the objective of the European Education Area making the opportunity for learning mobility a norm rather than exception, to build bridges and to promote incentives to cross-border learning mobility in a coordinated way.

Basis for EU action (legal basis and subsidiarity check)

Legal basis

EU action in the field of education, vocational education, youth and sport is taken based on Article 165 and 166 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which provide inter alia that EU action shall aim at encouraging mobility of students and teachers, vocational training instructors and trainees, youth exchanges, and the development of distance education. Articles 165.4 and 166.4 also provide that in order to contribute to the achievement of the objectives referred to in these articles, the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, shall adopt recommendations.

Practical need for EU action

Transnational learning mobility by definition needs the involvement of organisations of different countries to be successful. Any Member State acting alone would not be able to adequately tackle the obstacles to learning mobility for learners and teaching staff in Europe. The European Union is better placed to coordinate activities of policymakers from all EU Member States aimed at solving similar needs and problems across Europe.

B. What does the initiative aim to achieve and how

The aim of the initiative is to move towards an objective of the European Education Area of making learning periods abroad for everyone a normality, rather than an exception. It aims to increase opportunities for learning and teaching abroad in the EU and beyond for everyone, not only for higher education students and vocational education and training learners but in all sectors and at all levels of formal, non-formal and informal learning, including teachers, apprentices, school pupils, youth and youth workers, adult learners and sport staff.

The initiative will:

·identify barriers to learning mobility;

·provide guidance on overcoming them;

·promote learning mobility and identify possible incentives;

·make learning mobility more socially inclusive and environmentally friendly and link it more to digital learning opportunities.

The initiative will also analyse new developments in learning patterns, in particular, as concerns more flexible, blended and virtual learning formats as well as the need for more sustainable travel, behaviours and practices, and will propose how to address these new opportunities in a coordinated way at the EU and national level.

The initiative will not only focus on mobility for studies/formal learning but also place a focus on removing barriers to work based mobility and increasing traineeship opportunities abroad, including opportunities in SMEs, including start-ups and entrepreneurial organisations, to reinforce links between education (including vocational education and training) entrepreneurship, innovation and the labour market, and improve the quality and relevance of these opportunities.

Likely impacts

The initiative will encourage the Member States to make mobility experiences a valued part of all education and training pathways and embed the opportunity for mobility in education and training programmes, including work-based learning such as traineeships/internships and apprenticeships.

It will also enable more people to benefit from the reinforced 2021-2027 Erasmus+ programme that is offering learning opportunities abroad for everyone at any stage of the lifelong learning pathway and from other EU, national and regional mobility schemes.

This way more people will benefit from valuable learning and training periods abroad in gaining knowledge, skills and competences needed for personal, educational, and professional development, as well as for civic engagement and social inclusion. It will also contribute to more inclusive, more environmentally friendly, more digitally ready and more balanced learning mobility.

The initiative will equally have a positive impact on further internationalisation, cooperation and enhancement of quality of education and training institutions and of organisations and stakeholders involved in non-formal and informal learning contexts and youth work.

Future monitoring

The Mobility Scoreboard should be retained for assessing policy developments at the level of the Member States. It should be enhanced beyond its current scope covering higher education and initial vocational education and training, to gradually cover all sectors addressed by the initiative.

In addition, the initiative should encourage the development of learning mobility indicators for providing a more comprehensive overview of sectors addressed by the initiative.

Future monitoring arrangements will be able to benefit from an interim evaluation of the 2021-2027 Erasmus+ programme and a final evaluation of the 2014-2020 Erasmus programme that are both due by 31 December 2024.

C. Better regulation

Impact assessment

An impact assessment will not be conducted to support the preparation of this initiative. The learning mobility initiative will take the form of a Commission proposal for a Council Recommendation. This is a non-binding EU act, and in the areas of education and training, youth and sport the EU can only support, coordinate or complement the action of member countries. As the EU has so-called supporting competences, the impact of the Commission proposal for a Council Recommendation will depend on the engagement and the readiness to act of the member countries. Therefore, instead of an impact assessment, the Commission will support the initiative by an analytical Staff Working Document on the basis of evidence collected on incentives and obstacles to learning mobility through a dedicated study and the consultation of stakeholders.

Consultation strategy

The aim of the consultation strategy is to inform all interested parties about the upcoming Commission initiative and to gather relevant evidence and input from them.

In line with the European Commission’s Better regulation policy to develop initiatives informed by the best available knowledge, we invite scientific researchers, as well as academic organisations, learned societies, and scientific associations with expertise in the policy fields linked to initiative, to submit relevant published and pre-print scientific research, analyses and data. We are particularly interested in submissions that synthesise the current state of knowledge in relevant fields.

This call for evidence will be followed by an online public consultation and targeted consultations.

The public consultation will be based on a questionnaire aiming to collect inputs from a wide spectrum of respondents. It will be accessible via the Commission's central public consultations page 4 and the Have Your Say web portal 5 . It will run for a period of at least 12 weeks and will be carried out in all official EU languages. Eight weeks after the closure of the public consultation, the Commission will publish a factual summary report of the contributions received on the consultation page.

In addition, targeted consultations will be carried out by the Commission and by an external contractor, including focus groups to check and discuss the outcomes of the public consultation, multilingual focus groups with learners and staff who have not been on learning mobility to find out about their incentives and impediments, and multiple targeted interviews with key stakeholders.

The Commission will also carry out a Citizens Panel 6 on this upcoming initiative. Building on the success of the Conference on the Future of Europe, citizens’ panels are now part of the Commission’s policymaking in certain key areas. The new generation of citizens’ panels will deliberate on key initiatives of particular interest to citizens, including on learning mobility.

The various consultation activities will be promoted on Commission web pages and social media, but also by Erasmus+ national agencies and authorities through their existing communication channels.

The Commission will prepare a synopsis report including the results of all consultation activities as an annex to the Staff Working Document that will accompany the Commission proposal.

Why we are consulting?

The aim of the consultation is to collect information, expertise and views from all interested parties in order to reach evidence-based contribution ahead of the Commission’s proposal.

Target audience

Contributions are welcome from the general public and in particular from learners and staff in all education and training sectors, whether formal, non-formal or informal, youth workers, apprentices, sport staff, and from organisations sending and receiving mobile participants, including employers such as small and medium enterprises (SMEs), including start-ups. Inputs from decision-makers, associated stakeholder organisations and researchers would be also very valuable.