Brussels, 13/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - In order to make Europe the most competitive knowledge economy in the world, EUROCADRES (Council of European Professional and Managerial Staff) and the CEC (European Confederation of Managers) calls in a joint position paper addressed to the attention of the Barcelona Summit for: - access to lifelong learning to be guaranteed for all; - public establishments (schools and universities) to offer more programmes that are directly tailor-made for professionals and the working population. Such training units should be offered at relatively low cost because they should be considered in the context of lifelong learning as being as important as school education. "We need to understand that education and training is not limited to the first 20 or 25 years of our life and should become a continuous lifelong process. It should be seen as an investment by the various stakeholders", they stress.
Furthermore, while appreciating the fact that the Task Force report on "Skills and Mobility" takes the recognition of qualifications and diplomas into account, for both regulated and non-regulated professions, they ask that "the various interested parties should gather in a European platform, and, using national experience, promote mutual recognition of qualifications and diplomas" and also deal with other issues such as access to information on employment and jobs, and transferability of supplementary pension rights.