Riga, 02/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The education ministers of 35 European countries (the EU, the candidate countries, EFTA/EEA and South East Europe) took part on 29 and 30 June in Riga in the last major conference organised by the Swedish EU Council Presidency on the contribution that the information society may make to lifelong learning. The main speaker was Guillermo Kelley Salinas, Director General of the Latin American Institute of Educational Communications (ILCE) in Mexico City. The results of the conference must contribute to the future work on the targets to be fixed for education systems, in the context of the Lisbon/Stockholm process. In Riga, the ministers invited the Commission to complete its work on the indicators for Quality of Lifelong Learning, and to present the final report early 2002 to be discussed during the Sixth European Conference of Education Ministers in June 2002 (Slovakia proposed hosting this conference in Bratislava, under Spanish Presidency).
The main themes to be discussed in Riga include: - the use of information and communication technology (ICT) as a tool for "democratising" learning; - the"international dialogue" to be developed thanks to immediate access to these technologies; - the partly new role of teachers as supervisors and guides in the learning process of students.