Brussels, 02/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - On the initiative of Viviane Reding, the European Commission will adopt on Friday a report drawing up the first balance sheet on its European training initiative that was first applied at the beginning of 2000 (see EUROPE 4 January 2000). This project aims to facilitate inter-Community mobility in training, improving youth job prospects and increasing the quality and appeal of vocational training. This programme will allow people to stagger their training periods - including apprenticeships - and attend training in other Member States. This will involve the award of the "Europass Training" certificate, which provides a description of the training in the different EU languages. This document is useful for recognising training or study periods that are not part of European Commissioner programmes, such as the Erasmus (higher education) or Leonardo da Vinci (vocational training) programmes.
In order to guarantee the quality of the European training initiatives, the Europass Training certificate can only be awarded if certain conditions are met: 1) A partnership is agreed between, the organisations sending and receiving the student, that the content of the training is highlighted, its length and teaching methods; 2) A "tutor" takes charge of the person in training within the study establishment. The report released annually since 2000 demonstrates that: 1) Europas has been awarded to nearly 10,000 people in Germany, 3,000 in France, 2000 in the UK, more than 1000 in Denmark and 1000 in Austria; 2) The most common training destination is the UK, followed by Spain, Germany and France; 3) The most popular professions are hotel and catering and tourism; 4) The role played by SMEs in the initiative is satisfactory, but the number of apprenticeships that they send abroad for training in other Member States is too limited. (Info: http: //europa.eu.int/comme/education/europass/index_en.htlm).