Commission calls for urgent reform of education and training in Europe

Citation

(2004), "Commission calls for urgent reform of education and training in Europe", Education + Training, Vol. 46 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2004.00446bab.006

Commission calls for urgent reform of education and training in Europe

Commission calls for urgent reform of education and training in Europe

Europe invests too little in human resources, the average education level in Europe remains too low, vocational training does not reflect the requirements of the knowledge-based economy or the European labour market, too few adults take part in education and lifelong learning, and there is a danger of a teacher shortage in Europe. So says the European Commission, in a report on education and training systems in Europe.

Education and Training: the Success of the Lisbon Strategy Hinges on Urgent Reforms points out that, when it adopted the Lisbon strategy in March 2000, the European Union (EU) set itself the objective of making its education and training systems "a world reference for quality by 2010" and of making Europe "the first choice of students and researchers from the rest of the world". With this in mind, the European Council in 2001 decided that, by 2010, education and training systems should be organized around quality, access and openness to the world. The following year, education ministers and the European Commission adopted a work programme containing European criteria and benchmarks for attaining these targets.

In its latest report, the Commission highlights persistent shortcomings and proposes urgent reform. First, there is inadequate investment in human resources. Between 1995 and 2000, public investment fell in most countries and now accounts for 4.9 per cent of the EU's gross domestic product. Moreover, private-sector investment in education and training is five times higher in the USA (2.2 per cent of GDP, compared with 0.4 per cent in the EU) and three times higher in Japan (1.2 per cent). Second, the level of education among Europeans remains inadequate in today's knowledge-based society. Only 75 per cent of young people aged 22 have completed some form of upper-secondary education, the objective being 85 per cent by 2010. The EU is also short of graduates. They comprise only 23 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women aged 25 to 64, on average. Yet around 80 per cent of all new jobs created between now and 2010 are expected to require higher-education qualifications. Too many pupils (one in five) are still leaving the school system early and without qualifications, thus facing the risk of marginalization. Considerable effort will be required to meet the target of halving this rate by 2010, says the report.

Too few adults are engaged in lifelong education and training. In view of the expected extension of working life and the ever-growing pace of economic and social change, citizens will have to update their skills more often. Yet less than 10 per cent of adults are engaged in lifelong learning, some way short of the 12.5 per cent target for 2010. Finally, a teacher shortage threatens. More than one million teachers will have to be recruited between now and 2015, partly as a consequence of retirement. Yet the EU faces a real shortage of good candidates for teaching jobs.

The persistence of these weaknesses is all the more worrying given that the impact of investment and reform on the systems is likely to be felt only in the medium to long term. The report says that a qualitative leap is required at all levels if the EU is still to make a success of the Lisbon strategy. To achieve this, the Commission considers it essential to act immediately to:

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  Focus reforms and investment on key points in each country, taking into account individual situations and common objectives. At the EU level, this requires structured and continuous co-operation to develop human resources and to achieve maximum investment efficiency.

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  Define truly coherent and global lifelong education and training strategies, involving all the relevant actors and setting national reforms within the European context.

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  Create a Europe of education and training, in particular by quickly putting in place a European reference framework for higher-education and vocational-training qualifications.

The Commission urges the need to make the "Education and Training 2010" work programme a more effective tool for formulating and following up national and EU policies. In particular, the Commission considers it necessary to put in place a mechanism for regular progress reporting by 2004. Viviane Reding, European Commissioner responsible for education and training, commented: "Reform of the education and training systems in the member states is still falling short and is being implemented too slowly to enable the EU to attain the objectives it has set itself. The report adopted today enables us to establish what remains to be done, in full compliance with the principle of subsidiarity, if the objectives jointly agreed by the member states are to be attained. It is time to move up a gear and translate political commitments into concrete action, for without education, Lisbon will fail."