Support for education establishments, increased involvement of the sector and assessment criteria. These are some of the recommendations the European Parliament’s research service addressed to the Parliamentary committee responsible for culture and education on Wednesday 19 September.
Its study focuses on the action plan presented by the European Commission at the beginning of January on digital education (see EUROPE 11941). This plan proposes 11 initiatives for supporting the use of technologies and developing digital skills in education.
The European Parliament research service appears satisfied with the Commission's action plan, even though it believes it contains certain shortcomings. Therefore, for example: it claims that it fails to sufficiently deal with the complexity of the existing provisions regarding the transparency and recognition of qualifications; there is an ambiguity surrounding copyright protecting education materials; it does not provide sufficient support for the education establishments; it does not pay sufficient attention to the higher education institutions’ hubs. Amongst some of the most concrete recommendations is the suggestion in the report that the culture committee makes the Commission responsible for setting up digital education assessment criteria for different educational levels during the next programming period.
It should be pointed out that the culture committee is currently preparing an initiative report on education in the digital age, which will be put to a vote during the plenary on 10 December (after a committee vote on 20 November). The draft report by Yana Toom (ALDE, Estonia), which has just been published asserts that, “one of the major shortcomings in the action plan is the lack of action to strengthen digital skills in the adult population who are more difficult to reach”. It is calling on the Commission to now proceed to a critical analysis of the action plan in view of preparing itself for the midterm review in 2020. It also recalls that “a re-examination worthy of this name implies that it is prepared to get rid of the kind of action that has failed to prove its worth and exclusively retain the most efficient kinds of action, whilst developing new action areas if needs be”. The study can be consulted at the following link: https://bit.ly/2pmHaGm. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)