27.3.2010   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 79/27

1.

welcomes the Communication from the Commission entitled An updated strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training; fully endorses the general objectives set out, namely, to build higher skills through better education and training systems, an objective quite rightly described as an absolute priority for meeting the challenges facing the European Union;

2.

subscribes totally to the Commission's general analysis; education and training are crucial if Europe is to mobilise competitively in conditions that can safeguard a high level of social and environmental protection, bearing in mind that Europe's biggest asset is its people (1); recalls, in this context, that 79 % of jobs will require high or medium qualifications by 2015 (2);

3.

endorses the idea, developed by the European Commission, that education and training policy should enable all citizens, irrespective of age, gender and socio-economic background, to acquire, update and develop over a lifetime job-specific skills and active citizenship; these policies are therefore key factors for personal emancipation and social integration;

4.

recalls the importance of the responsibilities of the local and regional authorities and their key role in education and training, which makes them central players in the implementation process for achieving the strategic objectives set. Depending on national systems, local and regional authorities are responsible for various levels of education ranging from pre-school education to adult education and training, all of which are addressed in this Communication. Furthermore, European cooperation in the area of education and training is closely linked to employment and sustainable economic development strategies, migration issues, including multilingualism, demographic trends, and EU policies on social inclusion, business, research and innovation. As a result, it falls to the local and regional authorities to ensure an effective implementation of education and training policies incorporating all these aspects. The working methods chosen for long-term European cooperation in education and training should therefore take the responsibilities of local and regional authorities into account;

5.

emphasises that, in this respect, this Communication addresses a subject of long-term importance to the Committee, and, in the short term, the subject is linked to the Committee's priorities for 2009 (3);

6.

appreciates the fact that the proposed measures support and complete the actions of the Member States, thus contributing European added value without prejudicing the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality;

7.

emphasises, moreover, that with regard to the education and training of children from migrant backgrounds, which is also mentioned in the strategic challenges and priorities, this issue could be considered as equally relevant to the integration of third-country nationals in the European Union; recalls, in this regard, that integration measures do not fall within the EU's current remit in the area of immigration (Articles 61, 62 and 63 TEC) but under the direct responsibility of the Member States, which means that the EU can only play a supporting role in this area, pending the possible ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, which would strengthen EU prerogatives in this field;

8.

recalls that rising immigration in Europe constitutes a cultural, linguistic and demographic enhancement that is an opportunity rather than a burden, and that for this reason, education and training for first as well as second generation immigrants should be a priority insofar as it is the key to integration and effective participation in social and professional life (4); urges the Commission to pay attention to the most vulnerable migrants;

9.

notes the Commission's intention to strengthen the use of the open method of coordination (OMC) by adding peer review to existing peer learning activities; therefore urges the Commission to take account of the fact that strengthening the OMC may increase the financial and administrative burdens on local and regional authorities that are largely responsible for education and training;

10.

recalls that, particularly in the area of general and vocational education, the OMC can only function if the sub-national level is directly involved. The performance of Member States, which is the combined performance of their regions and municipalities, should be based on the wealth of their cooperation through sustained solidarity;

11.

is very attentive to gender inequality issues, as mentioned in several of its earlier opinions (5) and therefore calls on the Commission to pay special attention to this persistent gender-based imbalance;

12.

draws attention to the need to facilitate the integration of people with disabilities, irrespective of their age, in mainstream training and education, which would greatly enhance their social inclusion and employability;

13.

welcomes the importance given to adult training, which is essential for improving employability, mobility, social inclusion and personal development; recalls, in this context, that the Committee has already expressed its willingness to play an active role in promoting lifelong learning and training, an area which closely concerns local and regional authorities (6);

14.

queries the Communication's failure to mention the issue of training and maintaining a qualified workforce and people with key skills, an issue that is, however, crucial for most European countries in the context of developing a knowledge-based economy, both with respect to the ‘brain drain’ and the need to train high-level personnel in all disciplines; therefore urges the Commission to focus on this issue without, however, necessarily introducing further indicators, which could have a negative impact on the overall consistency of the set objectives;

15.

draws the Commission's attention to the fact that the Committee considers the involvement of third countries engaged in the EU accession process to be of vital importance and calls on the Commission to explore the different possibilities for achieving this;

16.

approves the four strategic challenges and the priorities proposed by the Commission for 2009-2010;

17.

notes that the short-term strategic challenges and priorities are in line with work already carried out under the Education and Training 2010 work programme;

18.

welcomes the fact that the strategic challenges are not restricted to labour market issues and approves, in particular, the challenge that seeks to ‘promote equity and active citizenship’; furthermore, first contact with policy and day-to-day implementation of active citizenship takes place at the sub-national levels;

19.

recalls its commitment to mobility, an essential aspect of cultural and professional development insofar as it contributes to overcoming economic as well as cultural barriers; stresses, therefore, that mobility must become the norm for all learners;

20.

highlights the key role played by local and regional authorities in learner mobility, both in providing information and flanking measures to complement EU programmes (7). The Committee therefore calls on the Commission to take more account of this role by involving the regions in the process of drawing up the programmes and by bestowing more responsibility on those regions that so wish in respect of their implementation.

21.

recalls that regional and local authorities must play a frontline role in achieving the ‘mother tongue plus two’ objective, especially in implementing education programmes (8);

22.

recalls the need to develop progress in language acquisition at primary and secondary school; the education process must provide more opportunities to speak at least one foreign language at primary school (9);

23.

recalls the need to step up efforts to raise awareness of the benefits of language learning (10);

24.

approves the intention to develop teachers’ initial training and the range of lifelong professional development opportunities for staff involved in teaching and guidance activities;

25.

considers that trends in terms of skills needs must be taken into account when developing education and training. These are often first identified at local and regional level;

26.

believes that education geared to sustainable development, and especially raising awareness of climate change, biodiversity and the conservation of all natural resources (soil, water, air, mineral resources, etc.), together with the development of media literacy, are essential and intrinsic components of active citizenship, approaches which could be included among the priorities for 2009-2010;

27.

recalls, in this regard, that active citizenship and understanding the issues of sustainable development are among the key competences for Europeans set out in the recommendation on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning – A European Reference Framework  (1);

28.

considers that early, pre-school learning and primary education plays an important role in the development of basic skills that equip people for life and work (11);

29.

approves plans to develop mutual learning on best practices for the education of children from migrant backgrounds. Mutual learning of this kind is an essential measure for promoting European citizenship and for a successful integration process;

30.

would emphasise the importance of mother-tongue instruction for children of migrants since this improves their ability to learn both the language of the host country and other languages; but state support should clearly prioritise learning the language of the host country and being able to use it confidently;

31.

emphasises the major importance of local authorities and regions in developing innovative environments (11);

32.

believes that societal challenges relating to environmental issues (water, energy, climate, biodiversity, pollution, etc.) should be given particular consideration under the objective that seeks to ‘enhance innovation and creativity’; at a broader level, these challenges call for in-depth changes to many professions and for many new ones to be created; they should therefore be incorporated in lifelong training, including by establishing suitable training courses;

33.

approves the proposal to develop partnerships between education and training providers and businesses, research institutions, cultural actors and creative industries; when followed through, these activities have demonstrated their innovative effectiveness;

34.

considers that developing cooperation between Member States is a prerequisite for meeting shared challenges that will result in the emergence of a dynamic knowledge-based society; feels that cooperation among local and regional authorities also contributes to this objective and should therefore be encouraged;

35.

therefore calls for a comparative overview of (i) Member States’ general and vocational training systems and (ii) the reforms that are planned in the near future to be drawn up and published on the internet in all official EU languages. This would allow education experts in municipalities, regions, municipal councils and school communities to obtain the information they need on other countries’ experiences with general and vocational training, and thus to contribute to discussions on the ongoing reorganisation of general and vocational training as equal partners at the central decision-making level;

36.

approves the use of benchmarks within the framework of the open method of coordination; however, this should not give rise to covert harmonisation of systems in individual Member States;

37.

approves the Commission's intention to use quantitative (benchmarks, statistics) and qualitative (information sharing and good practice) measures (12); these should mainly build on existing measures and be based on comparable data while taking account of the different situation in individual Member States. Member States would be invited to consider how and to what extent they can jointly contribute to achieving the goals while taking account of changing economic and social circumstances and their national priorities;

38.

emphasises that discussions have yet to take place regarding the resources that regions and municipalities might require in order to be able to take on any additional administrative and financial costs involved in the establishment of the new indicators;

39.

notes, however, that the objectives set in respect of four of the five benchmarks adopted in 2003 will not be met by 2010; furthermore, the impact of peer learning and information and good practice sharing remains uncertain, which argues in favour of reviewing the relevance of the set objectives and/or the working methods;

40.

advocates that the Commission, the Member States and local and regional authorities examine the reasons why these benchmarks have not been met;

41.

endorses the Commission's intention to raise the adult participation in lifelong learning objective from 12,5 % to 15 %; raising participation levels is particularly important in a period of crisis since efforts must be made to facilitate career conversion and provide further training for many workers;

42.

supports the proposal to set a benchmark for mobility, which is essential insofar as it enhances employability and contributes to developing European citizenship, although this indicator has yet to be defined by the Commission; believes, without prejudice to efforts made for university students, which should be pursued, that emphasis should be placed on the mobility of apprentices and young people in vocational training, an area where many regions are active;

43.

approves the intention to create benchmarks for low achievers in basic skills, which have been extended to mathematics and sciences, but stresses the need to focus primarily on reading and writing; recalls, however, that a knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICT) and foreign languages are important for the acquisition of knowledge and the implementation of lifelong learning and training objectives; children, in particular, should be able to acquire ICT skills at an early age (12); draws attention to social inequalities in accessing these technologies, which should be met with appropriate responses from national, regional and local or European institutions, thus enabling local and regional authorities to rely on existing EU programmes and new Commission programmes and to participate in the fight against functional illiteracy under the revised Lisbon Strategy; similarly, these bodies should take account of the importance of migrants learning the language of the host country in facilitating their social inclusion and employability;

44.

In work on developing new educational and training indicators and benchmarks as part of the open method of coordination, reading comprehension testing should be extended to skills in dealing with media content, given that nowadays in electronic or digital contexts such content comprises a combination of written texts, images and videos.

45.

believes that efforts made in the areas of reading, writing, mathematics, science and ICT are by no means incompatible with the teaching of other school subjects, which all contribute to the development of other qualities, such as creativity, self-respect and social skills (9);

46.

endorses the objective to further stimulate the progress made to provide teaching in two foreign languages from an early age and therefore approves the language benchmark;

47.

is very circumspect with regard to the introduction of a benchmark on investment in higher education: a proactive measure that raises investment in higher education to 2 % of GDP is in itself positive, but the public-private aspect of this objective should not relieve States of their responsibilities; this, moreover, should not lead to households having to pay a larger proportion of higher education funding, as this would, inter alia, undermine the equal opportunities objective, particularly in a period of crisis;

48.

endorses the benchmark for tertiary level attainment, as well as the proposal to discontinue the benchmark for maths, science and technology since it has been reached, and values the attention paid to the gender imbalance in these studies; recalls, in this context, the Committee's opinion on the Communication from the Commission Towards a Community framework strategy on gender equality  (13);

49.

has reservations about the Commission's proposal to establish a benchmark for employability since although the establishment of a link between levels of educational attainment and market labour success is a shared concern, other variables, in particular the economic situation, have to be included; this measure therefore warrants more precise definition;

50.

approves the Commission proposal to establish a benchmark for pre-primary education, since early learning creates new development opportunities and is an important aspect of lifelong learning;

51.

endorses the intention to leave the early school leavers benchmark unchanged and considers that various different approaches must be identified to reach this objective;

52.

has strong reservations regarding the proposal to develop a fixed benchmark for enhancing innovation and creativity considering current levels of experience; The Committee, however, supports the idea that Member States should examine the possibilities of developing indicators which have the potential to boost their efforts in the field of innovation and creativity.

53.

proposes exploring ways to enhance inter-state information and good practice sharing on the benchmarks for innovation and creativity and employability, with the close involvement of the regions;

54.

shares the commitment to maintain and expand effective and ambitious education and training policies; the ongoing crisis should not deflect us from this objective but, on the contrary, spur us on to its accomplishment.