Brussels, 31/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - Through the written procedure and on the initiative of Viviane Reding, the European Commission adopted its communication, on 30 January, on the "draft report on the future concrete objectives for the educational systems following the Lisbon Summit". The text will be on the table of the Education Council of 12 February (see EUROPE of 31 January, p.13) and, once adopted by the ministers, will be handed to the Stockholm Summit in March. One of the main interesting aspects of this report is that the Commission has asked Member States to answer a questionnaire on their methods of implementing the Lisbon conclusions in the field of education in general and more specifically what they consider to be the future concrete objectives of the educational system, a spokesperson for Ms. Reding explains. The Swedish Presidency of the Union having, if not similar, then ideas very close to those of the Commission in the matter, this report is "a further sign of the qualitative leap made within the Education Council, while leaving Member states responsibility for their own educational policy", said the spokesperson.
The report recommends that in the context of the "open method of coordination" launched in Lisbon, the Council adopt a long-term work programme by which Member States would strive in the following fields, with the help of the Commission:
1) to improving the level of education and training in Europe, by improving the quality of training of teachers and trainers and especially focussing on the ability to read, write and calculate;
2) to facilitating and generalising access to education and training in all stages of life, also facilitating the move from one educational system to another (for example, from vocational training to higher education);
3) to updating the definition of basic skills for the knowledge-based society, notably by integrating skills in information and communication technologies (ICTs), granting greater importance to personal abilities and trying to remedy the shortages in certain skills;
4) to opening up education and training to the local environment, to Europe and the rest of the world, by teaching foreign languages, through mobility, by tightening links with the world of business and developing education in the latter's interest;
5) make utmost use of resources, introducing quality insurance in schools and training institutes, by adapting resources to needs, and enabling schools to enter into new partnerships, so as better to play their role, more diversified as it is than before.
This report comes in the wake of a package of Commission measures such as its memorandum on education and lifelong learning, its e-Learning communication, the proposal for a recommendation relating to the mobility in the EU of students, people undergoing training, young volunteers, trainers and teachers, or even the report on the quality of school education, and the decision establishing the European Year of Languages 2001.