Brussels, 10/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 10 June, the European Commission unveiled its new skills strategy for Europe, which has already been warmly welcomed and focuses on ten key actions to boost the use and development of skills.
As reported in EUROPE 11561 and EUROPE 115666, the main innovation is the introduction of a skills guarantee. What this means in practice is that the European Commission recommends that the member states ensure that each European citizen has basic skills and/or is encouraged to take higher education. To this end, it asks them to introduce tools to assess skills, provide flexible and high-quality made-to-measure training and to validate and recognise the skills acquired in this process.
The other measures cover a revision of the European certifications framework of 2008, the imminent launch of a skills profiling tool for non-EU nationals and a sector-specific skills cooperation plan. The general communication announces further tangible measures that will run into 2017.
“Overall, we are pleased with the Commission's proposals”, Thiébaut Weber, co federal secretary at the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) told this newsletter. The ETUC is particularly pleased about the skills guarantee and the attention paid by the Commission to the work of social partners on apprenticeship. It regrets, however, the lack of any reference to the social partners, which play a key role, particularly in professional training.
BusinessEurope also appears quite pleased with the initiatives to make skills match what the market needs and to develop digital skills on the same basis as basic skills. The European centre for employers and enterprises providing series to public service (CEEP) is also pleased with the new strategy, particularly the launch of a collation for digital jobs and skills. The association of certified accountants (ACCA) takes a similar view, being particularly pleased with the measures to boost the portability, understanding and comparability of qualifications.
The strategy can be viewed at the following address:
http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=89&langId=en&newsId=2556&moreDocuments=yes&tableName=news . (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)