Brussels, 10/02/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 10 February, EU education ministers held a policy debate on the way that education and training helps to reduce youth unemployment. They each presented their main initiatives and exchanged lessons learned from experience in order to help bring down the currently high levels of youth unemployment (average rate 20% among 15-24 year olds, reaching close to 50% in some member states), and to attenuate the social impact of the crisis on youth employment. The European Council of December 2011 underlined how urgent it was to take national and European measures in favour of the most vulnerable categories, especially young unemployed persons, and the need to adjust education and training systems to the requirements of the labour market, by increasing proficiency and skills. The informal Council on 30 January this year also clearly recognised that it was necessary to tackle youth unemployment as a matter of urgency and called on all sectors concerned to play a part in this.
The Danish minister for childhood and education, Christine Antonini, said it was essential for young people to receive training, which allows them to find their place in society. The young that do not receive training, she said, could be completely marginalised. There must be better prospects for the young who do not receive training, finding ways to include them in lifelong training apprenticeships, and creating bridges between theory and practice, the minister added. Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner responsible for education, culture, youth and sport, deplored the fact that member states' education and training schemes had met with such poor success, not managing to sufficiently meet the challenges of the current crisis (see related article). She bemoaned the fact that young people have not been given the necessary qualifications to fill the needs of the labour market, and considers that immediate support should be given to young persons in difficulty by resorting to effective education and training policies, and by using European funds that have so far not been used. Regular stock should be taken of the situation using performance benchmarks. At present, the Commission is proposing 130,000 trainee courses within the Erasmus and Leonardo programmes. The commissioner trusts that this may be increased to 150,000 in 2013. A number of member states manage to keep the rate of youth unemployment down and have made known their method of working. Austria, for example, has explained the key to the success of its system: - alternating apprenticeship (as also practised by Germany), full time vocational training from secondary school on for young people via compulsory real-life courses, and close cooperation between universities and higher technical schools, on one hand, and with the world of work, on the other. According to many speakers, companies do not provide a sufficient number of traineeships to young people and they should be encouraged to step up this kind of offer. Ireland, for its part, underlined the need to give a second chance to young people who drop out early, by giving them the possibility to reintegrate into the educational system.
The conclusions of the debate will be used by the Danish Presidency of the EU Council as a basis for drafting a summary report to be forwarded to the European Council on 1-2 March, which will constitute this meeting's contribution to the education sector. (IL/transl.jl)