Education Commissioner Mariya Gabriel called on Member States to act in a coordinated way in their management of the coronavirus epidemic. “It’s quite disturbing, when you see that in one Member State there are different rules than the others, at least, I think that we should be able to have some common guidelines”, she said at an online event on Tuesday 17 November.
The conference, entitled ‘Education in a post Covid-19 Europe - Lessons learned and the way forward’, was organised by the European Policy Centre and the Egmont Institute.
In her speech, Commissioner Gabriel praised the “exceptional resilience in adapting to the situation” demonstrated by the schools. She focused her speech on the initiatives listed in the Communication for a European Education Area by 2025 and the Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027 (see EUROPE 12571/8).
She also expressed her satisfaction that the next Erasmus exchange programme would fund “25 European teachers academies”.
Asked about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the current programme, she recalled that the Commission had introduced more flexibility, allowing planned projects to be postponed by one year. “What we have seen, for long term mobility, 60 % stopped but 40% continue with online learning”, the Commissioner said, stressing that she would follow this issue in the future.
Asked by EUROPE about the experience gained so far, in particular with regard to the closure or otherwise of schools, the Commissioner replied: “It’s a very difficult question. Especially because if you’d like to stay coherent with what we are saying, we need really to tackle different challenges. First, the health and the security of teachers, the people on the front line. And at the same time, we are saying that new technologies will never replace interpersonal contact. So the question is really to have this right balance”, she said, indicating that she will advocate for a coordinated approach to the issue at the next Education Council on 30 November. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)