Lowering the age at which pre-school education should be obligatory is one of the ideas that is currently being envisaged by the European Commission and it is possible that this will be included in its draft recommendation on early childhood.
Education and training are primarily located within the remit of the member states. In compliance with the subsidiarity principle, the European Union is encouraging cooperation and coordination between the states and could also complete their action, if necessary. On this basis, the European Commission is preparing a new package of measures planned for 2 May. This package will be based around a framework communication and three recommendations focusing on foreign languages, recognition of qualifications (university and secondary school) and early childhood respectively. This package could also possibly be accompanied by a strategy focusing on youth and another one on culture.
Early childhood. One source at the Commission informed us that as part of these recommendations, it intended to lower the age for compulsory attendance at pre-school education. The "Education and Training 2020" (ET 2020) strategic framework would like at least 95% of children between the ages of four and the compulsory school age to attend pre-school education by 2020. This objective has almost been attained (94.8 %), as illustrated in the follow-up to education and training 2017 (see EUROPE 11901). In this context, the Commission is looking at the possibility of lowering the age for entering pre-school education from the current four years to three years in the future. This question, however, has not been decided yet. At a broader level, the draft recommendation is expected to provide details about what it means by “quality preschool education”.
Foreign languages. During the Education Council on 15 February, Education Commissioner Tibor Navracsics said that he wanted to strengthen the learning of languages “so that more young people speak at least two European languages, in addition to their mother tongue”. Currently, a little over half of early secondary school students in Europe learn more than one language (58.8 %), according to Eurostat. In Hungary and Austria less than 10% of them learn two languages.
Education budget. The European Commission's proposals are expected on 2 May on the next multi-annual financial framework, which is expected to decide the fate of
Erasmus+. Recently, Navracsics informed EUROPE that he had received assurances that funding for Erasmus+ would not be reduced and that it would even be increased. He stated that “according to the first castings, there is a certain room for manoeuvre whereby the European Commission will at a minimum, double the Erasmus+ budget” (see EUROPE 11972). EUROPE's source, however, appeared more cautious in this connection and said that a doubling of funding would be difficult.
At this stage, it appears that the Commission is looking at the possibility of regrouping programmes into clusters and that Erasmus+ may be covered by the human capital cluster. The Comenius project could also possibly be reintegrated (in a different form) into the programme, in an effort to promote short-term educational mobility. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)