Foreword

Hello to you all!

I believe innovation in education and training should be a European priority. Because tomorrow’s learning revolution will be a digital one. I hope you share those views.

Just this week, the Commission put forward its proposals to open up education – something I’ve been working intensely on, with my colleague Androulla Vassiliou.

Our plans are an ambitious agenda to make education fit for the digital age, integrating new technologies into education and training. It’s not just computers in the classroom: it’s about using all technological tools for twenty-first century teaching.

This will recognise and support authorities in their quest to modernise education and training. It will empower citizens to get the skills they need – anywhere, anytime, on any device. And it will help European leadership in a growing global market.

The online world can change how education is resourced, delivered and enjoyed. Over the next 10 years, the e-Learning market is projected by some to grow fifteen-fold; becoming 30% of the whole education market. That change could prove disruptive, just as digital technology has done in other sectors like media. But I know the impact will be positive.

Our challenge is to ensure that everyone in Europe benefits. To level the imbalances in ICT tools between Member States. To help teachers get and use digital skills, removing their fears and other barriers. To ensure enough supply of quality digital content across languages, subjects and needs. To open learning environments to deliver better education and training, more efficiently.

This disruption also creates opportunities for many. Higher education institutions are increasingly using the Internet to reach and serve more students, better. Teachers are not just using, but creating, open educational resources: in turn stimulating new products, services and models. Publishers and ICT companies are alike investing in education technology.

If Europe has been a little slower than elsewhere – then it is our duty to act together to move faster, so we can all gain the benefits of digital learning, in every European country.

Education must deliver the skills our economy and society need. Opening education will also improve our digital skills: helping to supply the talent for the hundreds of thousands of unfilled digital jobs in Europe.

And making a career in education more attractive and fulfilling.

So we will invest in large-scale innovative teaching. We will work on developing curricula and how to assess skills. We will encourage open frameworks and standards to make resources more accessible, creating new market opportunities. And we will enable a more efficient marketplace, through public sector procurement.

Over the coming months, I will work with European Parliament and Council to help them engage with our strategy. And I will be reaching out to teachers, learners, families and social partners too. These technologies are already pervasive in our lives: now they needed to be integrated into learning, in all its forms: accessible, open and engaging.

My dream is to have every classroom digital by 2020. As strong advocates of these new tools, I hope I can count on your support and active engagement.

Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission

Video Message to the Opening Ceremony of the ELIG Annual General Meeting, Stockholm University, 26 September 2013