Brussels, 30/05/2002 (Agence Europe) - Chaired by Pilar Del Castillo Vera on 30 May (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.11), the EU's education ministers held a pretty general debate on the follow-up of Barcelona "which made important progress in the domain of education". They adopted a resolution on lifelong learning and gave their political agreement to the draft decision to make 2004 the European Year of Education through Sport and extending the Tempus programme to Meda countries. The final Education Council under the Spanish Presidency will be held in Bratislava in mid-June, announced Del Castillo Vera.
The exchange of views on the follow-up to Barcelona focussed on the following areas: 1. The Bruges Process. The Council launched this professional training process that, as Commission Viviane Reding pointed out, attempts to bring Member States' professional training systems closer together in order to share experience and get involved in pilot projects; 2. Early learning of two languages along with one's mother tongue and the creation of a language skills indicator. Reding said that the Commission was planning to set up an expert group on language issues and said it would be adopting a language learning action plan in 2003. 3. Lifelong learning. The Council adopted a resolution, explained Del Castillo Vera, reaffirming three principles: ensuring that Member States' activities converged; strengthening lifelong learning by activities and policies designed in the framework of the European employment strategy; and guaranteeing everyone has the chance to acquire the necessary knowledge and qualification to pursue their professional career. During the debate Ireland said that non-formal training had to be validated, and Portugal stressed the development of synergy between education and training. Finland welcomed the planned adoption of language indicators, and Italy proposed prospective activities like increasing the quality of science and technology education. Higher quality education was also called for by Germany. In terms of language learning Germany argues that it was essential to ensure that immigrant children were not overburdened (children of Turkish immigrants working in Germany for example for whom it is not clear whether their first language is German or Turkish and who live in a bi or trilingual background). Luxembourg followed suit by saying that in Luxembourg Portuguese children found themselves in a quadrilingual atmosphere (German, French, English and Portuguese) which could lead to failure at school. France called professional training the poor relation in the teaching world since young people take on apprenticeships when they fail elsewhere. For this reason, France (like Reding) called for reform and a reassessment of this type of training.
The Council agreed politically with 2004 being the European Year of Education through Sport. With a EUR 11.5 million budget, the year aims to strengthen cooperation between sports organisations and academia so that sporting values are better taken on board in education, the promotion of volunteering and the use of sport as a means of social integration. All these aspects were mentioned by Viviane Reding, who was pleased that the preparatory activities for the year could now begin, particularly in schools.
Political agreement being won over Tempus Meda, the 3rd phase of the trans-European cooperation programme for higher education (Tempus III, 2000-2006) which can restart at the beginning of the 2003-2004 academic year with a budget estimated at around EUR 21 million for the 8 countries concerned in the first year.
The President of the Council also informed ministers of the outcome of the EU/Latin America/Caribbean Summit held in Madrid on 17/18 May, noting that the Summit had suggested setting up a common higher education area, on the initiative of France and Spain.
Viviane Reding also announced that the ministers agreed to launch a Europe Day in schools to make young people aware of European issues and so that the young people admitted to the European Convention can present their views. The provisional date fixed is 21 March 2003. To prepare for the Seville Summit, the Commission will put forward proposals to twin schools via the internet (as required by the Barcelona Summit) and called for consultation of teachers, civil society and education ministers to ensure this twinning can have an impact on the greatest possible number of young people.